The UK now has a Supreme Court that is independent of the House of Lords. Technically, perhaps we ought to be pleased. But the whole thing has been done as just another hollow idea, something quickly dreamt up and shoved into action so a box can be ticked. One of those let's-eff-around-with-things-because-we-can projects, typical of the empty-heads brigade.
Were the people clamouring for this? Was the nation ripe for this change? Was it well researched? Was the constitutional adjustment deeply explored in all its ramifications? Was there a hunger for this change? Is it the most-needed change in the nation at this time? 'No' to all of them.
Swearing in
The project dates from when Pluto was in Sagittarius - Sign of law being created - and has come into being as Pluto was at zero degrees of Capricorn - Sign of law being judged. Pluto was stationary on the 11th of September, and at the beginning of October was still moving very slowly, inching forwards after its retrograde period. Here's the chart for the time when the swearing-in of the Law Lords was scheduled to begin (I couldn't find a news report containing the exact time of when it happened).
As you can see, Scorpio is Rising which makes Pluto the chart-ruler. This has more to do with power contests than law.
The chart gives me a weird feeling. There's something that just doesn't fit about this whole idea. In theory the separation of powers is not one I disagree with at all, but this set-up, this Supreme Court, these Law Lords, this building (Middlesex Guildhall - it doesn't have the atmosphere of a Court, never mind a Supreme one), and this chart, they just all seem wrong.
Astrologically, there's not much to commend in terms of the chart matching the proclaimed purpose. This constitutional adjustment is vacuous and undermining. The Sun - the significator of supremacy, and the core of the entity - has no aspects except a sesquiquadrate to Neptune. For some types of institutions or projects this aspect would be ideal. For this one it's a huge mistake. A few descriptive words and images: supremacy is being undermined; it's all at sea; it's swamped; it's thinned-out; it's mystified, obscured; boundaries are blurred; no-one sticks to or knows their correct role, and yet everyone is swept up in self-glorification and self-importance. There is a disconnection too, symbolising a swing from lack of engagement to overbearing self-reliance. This isn't signifying separation of powers at all. It's signifying a confusion of pompous fools with no perspective on what they're doing but having a severely inflated identity that repeatedly won't be grounded or appropriately connected. Pluto, the chart ruler, is unaspected too. A separation of power, yes, but a complete disconnection with the inability to form necessary linkages. That's not what is needed in the country.
Looking at the planets that represent law, Venus and Jupiter, the picture doesn't get any better. Both are almost unaspected, so we have the same story again. Neither of them are in Signs or Houses that shout 'Supreme Court! Justice! Fair Trial!' Jupiter is conjunct Chiron and Neptune, so there are issues of a vain hope of redemption. Venus is in Virgo conjunct Mercury - not a distaster but hardly a symbol of what the constitutional adjustment is purportedly about. The Sun in Libra is fair enough in both senses, but the whole chart has a 'damp squib' feeling about it.
First sitting
This is the chart for the scheduled time of the first sitting of the Supreme Court. Since it occurs just a few days later at just one hour later and at the same location, the Ascendant is still Scorpio and Pluto therefore remains the chart ruler. Several planets shift houses though, and that's important.
This chart is better - at least the 10th house (signifying high authority) is packed. But that's about as far as it goes. The Moon has moved Signs and is more connected, but not advantageously. The Moon represents the people, and in the swearing-in chart it was unconnected and placed in a weak position, although on the Jupiter-Uranus midpoint it at least had some sense of humanitarian spirit and was at the centre of liberty and progress. What's the point in a Supreme Court that weakens the people?
In this chart the Moon, i.e. the public, is in a stronger Sign and the public are shown as being more able to stand up for themselves, however the Moon's only aspects are a square with Mars and a quincunx with Saturn. This paints a picture of over-aggression, both by the people and directed at the people, and an extremely strained relationship with the powers that be. The judges and the people are not in tune at all, they're very discordant and don't see eye-to-eye. They openly battle with no consensus reached. Only the powerful can prevail, but the people aren't the powerful ones here.
Stupidly, the Supreme Court website refers to 'customers' and promises to have a 'customer satisfaction' survey soon. Is it a shop? Is it a business? Is it selling something? The idea of a legal institution providing a recourse to justice for those who've suffered injustice has been deliberately eradicated in favour of the mentality of buying and selling. The Supreme Court won't work and can't be made to work under these circumstances.
The only solution is to get rid of it and start again from scratch, this time thinking it through deeply, widely and properly, researching it comprehensively, sketching it out on more than a beer mat, involving the people in a sincere and profound way, using the mental framework of a legal institution not a business. No wonder they've launched it when the planetary cycles point not to justice and fair trials and supremacy of good law, but to vacuity and disconnection of power from the people.
It was done, after all, by the same Parliament and the same Law Lords that allowed the severe reduction of trial by jury and who ignored the Bill of Rights which forbids people being fined without a trial before their peers, thus demonstrating that their respect for the public, for justice and for two thousand years of the evolution of legal principles is minimal.
