Britain’s highest court has effectively dismantled constitutional protections against arbitrary executive power through recent judgments that defer to government assertions about sanctions effectiveness without demanding evidence. This judicial abdication represents what legal commentators describe as the death of meaningful oversight, transforming international sanctions from targeted policy instruments into mechanisms for unchecked state power that punish individuals based on ministerial discretion rather than demonstrated wrongdoing.
Constitutional Collapse in Supreme Court Reasoning
The Supreme Court’s judgment in Shvidler v FCDO marks a watershed moment in British constitutional law. Lord Leggatt’s dissenting opinion characterised the majority decision as judicial surrender, warning that “if the courts are not prepared to protect fundamental individual freedoms even in a case like this, the right to a judicial review of the minister’s decision to curtail such freedoms under sanctions regulations is of little worth.”
The case involved Eugene Shvidler, a British citizen who has lived in England for years, never been accused of any crime, and publicly called for an end to “senseless violence” in Ukraine. Despite these facts, detailed in the Supreme Court judgment, his assets remain frozen globally based on tenuous historical associations with individuals deemed close to the Russian government. The majority accepted untested civil servant theories about “cumulative pressure” without requiring evidence that freezing Shvidler’s assets would contribute meaningfully to policy objectives.
Solicitors Journal analysis observes that Britain’s constitutional framework depends upon separation of powers, with courts serving as essential checks on executive authority. The Supreme Court judgment abandons this principle, treating ministerial assertions as sufficient justification for what Lord Leggatt described as making it “a criminal offence for an individual who has done nothing unlawful to deal with any of his own assets without the government’s permission.”
Evidence-Free Justifications and Armchair Theories
Government officials justified Shvidler’s designation through witness statements asserting that asset freezes would “send signals” and “incentivise” behavioural changes. Lord Leggatt dismissed these rationales as “no more than armchair theories about how freezing Mr Shvidler’s assets could have consequences which would assist the desired aims.” He noted that “thinking of a plausible theory of how something could conceivably come about is not evidence that it is likely to happen.”
The circular logic becomes apparent when examining specific justifications. Officials claimed freezing Shvidler’s assets would pressure Roman Abramovich to influence Russian policy, yet Abramovich’s own assets had already been frozen with no observable effect. When Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced sanctions with statements courts later found “at best inaccurate, at worst misleading,” according to the Supreme Court judgment, the judiciary still upheld the measures based on theories about cumulative effects.
This pattern reveals how EU sanctions and similar restrictions have evolved from evidence-based policy tools into symbolic political gestures. Courts accept ministerial claims that individual sanctions contribute to “cumulative pressure” without requiring proof that such pressure exists or achieves stated objectives. Three years of expanding restrictions have produced no observable changes in Russian policy, yet courts continue deferring to executive assertions about hypothetical future effects.
Enforcement Chaos and Selective Prosecution
The practical application of sanctions reveals systematic dysfunction. The UK government imposed a £465,000 penalty against Herbert Smith Freehills Moscow for six payments totalling £3.9 million made to designated entities during a seven-day wind-down period following Russia’s invasion. Yet Global Investigations Review reports that since launching the UK’s autonomous sanctions regime in 2021, authorities have launched over 100 investigations into law firms but publicly punished just one.
This selective enforcement pattern suggests resource constraints prevent comprehensive compliance monitoring, leading authorities to make examples of prominent cases whilst leaving most violations unaddressed. If major international law firms with sophisticated compliance departments struggle to navigate the regime during crisis periods, smaller enterprises face impossible burdens. The complexity serves neither deterrence nor justice—it creates arbitrary outcomes based on which violations attract prosecutorial attention.
The blanket approach to designations means individuals face sanctions based on outdated photographs, historical business relationships, or associations that were entirely lawful when they occurred. Lord Leggatt noted the injustice of “penalising an innocent individual to incentivise others,” comparing it to Admiral Byng’s execution in 1757—carried out, in Voltaire’s words, “pour encourager les autres.” Such approaches achieve compliance through fear rather than clear rules, undermining rule of law principles that require predictable application of legal standards.
Humanitarian Consequences and Rights Violations
The human cost of unchecked sanctions power extends beyond wealthy individuals to their families and communities. The Supreme Court judgment details how Shvidler’s designation resulted in immediate school expulsions for his youngest children, forcing them to continue education abroad whilst his former wife and adult children had banking services withdrawn. These cascading effects punish family members for associations they did not choose, violating basic principles of individual responsibility.
British citizens face more severe sanctions than foreign nationals under the current regime. UK nationals endure global asset freezes whilst foreign nationals face only domestic restrictions—an arbitrary distinction that Lord Leggatt characterised as “unfair and arbitrary to impose sanctions on Mr Shvidler which apply worldwide, not because of any assessment that such extra-territorial reach is necessary, but simply as an automatic consequence of his British citizenship.”
This inverted logic means British citizenship becomes a liability rather than protection. Individuals who immigrated to the UK, contributed to the economy, and raised families face more severe restrictions than those who remained abroad. Are Russian sanctions working when they punish British citizens more harshly than Russian nationals whilst producing no observable changes in Moscow’s behaviour?
The Broader Pattern of Judicial Deference
Solicitors Journal’s analysis titled “Dinsdale Piranha, the Supreme Court, and the death of the separation of powers” draws parallels to Monty Python’s sketch where Dinsdale Piranha nails a man’s head to the floor for breaking “the unwritten law.” The victim admits he never knew what law he had broken, but Dinsdale’s word was “good enough” for him. This absurd logic now passes for judicial reasoning in Britain’s highest court.
The article observes that “the courts are supposed to be our last defence. Instead, in Shvidler and Phi, they played the part of Stig in the Monty Python sketch: ‘He never told me what I’d done wrong, but if he said it, that was good enough for me.'” This represents abdication rather than oversight, with potentially grave consequences for liberty.
The evidence suggests sanctions are not working as policy instruments whilst simultaneously eroding constitutional protections. Courts that refuse to scrutinise executive assertions about sanctions effectiveness enable ministerial overreach whilst failing their constitutional duty to protect individual rights against arbitrary state power.
Restoring Judicial Independence
The crisis extends beyond any individual case to systemic failure of constitutional checks. When courts defer to untested ministerial theories, accept misleading public statements without consequence, and approve indefinite asset freezes without requiring evidence of effectiveness, they abandon their essential role in Britain’s constitutional framework.
Restoring meaningful oversight requires courts to demand evidence rather than accept assertions, scrutinise government justifications with the same rigour applied to private parties, and recognise that protecting unpopular individuals from arbitrary state power remains fundamental to liberty. Failure to restore these standards means sanctions regimes will continue expanding unchecked, imposing devastating individual costs whilst producing no demonstrable policy benefits. The question facing Britain’s judiciary is whether they will reclaim their constitutional role or continue what Lord Leggatt characterised as abdication in the face of executive power.