claims under European Union law are another story, because they raise novel arguments which require to be resolved. On those claims I have nothing to add to the judgment of Lord Mance, with which I agree. 88. Of course, in any modern democracy, the views of the public and Parliamentarians cannot be the end of the story. Democracy is about more than respecting the views of the majority. It is also about safeguarding the rights of minorities, including unpopular minorities. “Democracy values everyone equally even if the majority does not”: Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza [2004] 2 AC 557, para 132. It follows that one of the essential roles of the courts in a democracy is to protect those rights. It was for that reason that Lord Bingham took issue with the argument of a previous Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, in A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] 2 AC 68, para 42: “I do not . . . accept the distinction which he drew between democratic institutions and the courts. It is of course true that the judges in this country are not elected and are not answerable to Parliament. . . . But the function of independent judges charged to interpret and apply the law is universally recognised as a cardinal feature of the modern democratic state, a cornerstone of the rule of law itself. The Attorney General is fully entitled to insist on the proper limits of judicial authority, but he is wrong to stigmatise judicial decision-making as in some way undemocratic.” 89. The present Attorney General has wisely not suggested any such thing. He recognises that it is the court’s task to protect the rights of citizens and others within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom in the ways which Parliament has laid down for us in the Human Rights Act 1998. But insofar as he implied that elected Parliamentarians are uniquely qualified to determine what the franchise should be, he cannot be right. If the current franchise unjustifiably excludes certain people from voting, it is the court’s duty to say so and to give them whatever remedy is appropriate. More fundamentally, Parliamentarians derive their authority and legitimacy from those who elected them, in other words from the current franchise, and it is to those electors that they are accountable. They have no such relationship with the disenfranchised. Indeed, in some situations, they may have a vested interest in keeping the franchise as it is. 90. To take an obvious example, we would not regard a Parliament elected by an electorate consisting only of white, heterosexual men as uniquely qualified to decide whether women or African-Caribbeans or homosexuals should be allowed to vote. If there is a Constitution, or a Bill of Rights, or even a Human Rights Act, which guarantees equal treatment in the enjoyment of its fundamental rights, including the right to vote, it would be the task of the courts, as guardians of those Page 44