Adam Tomkins

Jul 23, 2024 | lawliberty.org | Adam Tomkins |Graham McAleer |Christopher M Parry |James Hartley

Classically, constitutions do two things. They allocate and distribute power, and they provide the means whereby the people can hold that power to account. Power and accountability are what constitutions are all about. In the modern age, a third function has been added—that constitutions also set out (or enumerate) the fundamental rights of citizens—but this third function need not concern us here. In Trump v.

May 17, 2024 | lawliberty.org | Salman Rushdie |Adam Tomkins |Thomas Savidge |David Schaefer

Sir Salman Rushdie is first and foremost a novelist, a creator of fiction, an artist. He is brilliant at it and, deservedly, much decorated. His fifteen published novels have been translated into dozens of languages, won the world’s most glittering literary prizes, and attracted the plaudits of critics around the globe. So it is an appalling fact that this is not the thing for which he is most famous.

Apr 18, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Adam Tomkins

Greta Thunberg joins activists outside the court (Image: free) Last week the European Court of Human Rights gave one of the most extraordinary judgments it has ever handed down. It ruled that Switzerland had acted unlawfully in failing to take adequate steps to combat climate change, and that this failure was a breach of human rights. The implications of this ruling reach far and wide, including here in Scotland.

Mar 20, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Adam Tomkins

The new law may disappoint transgender activists (Image: PA) The much-maligned Hate Crime Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament three years ago, finally comes into force on April 1. Predictably, there is a great deal of noise. Propagandists on both sides want to turn up the heat and, once again, much nonsense has been written about what the new law will mean. So, what exactly does the Act do -and what does it not do? Let’s start at the beginning.

Jan 12, 2024 | lawliberty.org | D.G. Hart |Rachel Lu |Jonathan Leaf |Adam Tomkins

In 1923, a middle-aged professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary, J. Gresham Machen, produced a book that asserted liberal Protestantism was not simply a defective version of Christianity but a different religion altogether. Talk about provocative. Was Machen trolling liberal Protestants? One hundred years later, white conservative Protestants in the US spent a good chunk of last year commemorating Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. The reasons are not hard to imagine.