England doesn’t have a Supreme Court. The equvialent is the Law Lords (Judges all) reviewing a case under the authority of the Privy Council.

For now, the High Court is the right place for this.

As for your proposal the Supreme Court, or it’s equivalent, would waste an enourmous amout of time reviewing legistaltion that hasn’t even passed yet This would be of particular concern under the American legislative system where poorly worded law is placed, debated and passed on a regular basis due to the fact that anyone can place a bill on the floor.

In the parliamentary system the job of ensuring the bill is properly written and constitutional is the job of the Attoreny-Genral not the courts.

Then there’s the small issue that many flaws don’t appear until they actually happen in a case when someone suddenly goes “whooops!” and the courts need to respond. It’s called the “law of unintended consequences” though, perhaps, in this case it’s more likely intended consquences that the court must now review and rule on.

The English courts of law are fiercely independent and have moved to protect that indepenence when governments of the day have moved to limit it.

As for the number of MP’s present when the bill passed if it’s a whipped vote then it really doesn’t matter given that Labour had a majority when the vote took place. So I’m not surprised that the Opposition didn’t bother to show up.

Yes, like democracy, freedom and liberty it’s a rotten system UNTIL you look at the alternatives.

BTW, I keep saying England because there are sometimes/often differences in law in Scotland, Wales, Northern Island, The Isle of Mann, The Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands to take into account.

Just as there are, in civil law, important differences between Quebec and the “rest of Canada” as Quebec’s civil law is based on French civil law as it existed before England and the English colonies in North America booted the French out.