Chabal that deportees required an adjudication of their case before a court. Thus he concluded that the Commission did not have the authority the statute seemed to give it. But not only is it far from clear why courts inherently lack authority to review national security decisions, but the Commission was not composed of generalist judges. Rather, it was composed of one such judge and two experts, to whom one might argue a generalist court should consider deferring. Surely, that is, the point of the new scheme was not to establish an ineffective body, acourt with no real review authority, but to set up a body capable of delivering an ' effective remedy. The question why this alternative approach was not adopted becomes even more pressing when one notes that Lord Steyn and lord Hoffman are two of the judges responsible for articulating the principle of legality which lies behind that other approach, a principle which, in their view, requires that all executive acts be demonstrated to be justifiable in law, where law is assumed to include fundamental values. Thus in R/ Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Pierson, Lord Steyn said that Parliament does not legislate in a vacuum'but for a European liberal democracy founded on the principles and traditions of the common law.And in Rr Secretary of tate, ex p Simms, Lord Hoffman said that while Parliament can override fundamental rights, the principle of legality means that Parliament must squarely confront what it is doing and accept the political cost. Fundamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous words. This is because there is too great a risk that the all implications of their unqualified meaning may have passed unnoticed in the democratic I Ibid 133, 2 12Ibid139,W49 131997]3WLR492,at51811 Chahal that deportees required an adjudication of their case before a ‘court’. Thus he concluded that the Commission did not have the authority the statute seemed to give it.12 But not only is it far from clear why courts inherently lack authority to review national security decisions, but the Commission was not composed of generalist judges. Rather, it was composed of one such judge and two experts, to whom one might argue a generalist court should consider deferring. Surely, that is, the point of the new scheme was not to establish an ineffective body, a ‘court’ with no real review authority, but to set up a body capable of delivering an ‘effective remedy’. The question why this alternative approach was not adopted becomes even more pressing when one notes that Lord Steyn and Lord Hoffman are two of the judges responsible for articulating the principle of legality which lies behind that other approach, a principle which, in their view, requires that all executive acts be demonstrated to be justifiable in law, where law is assumed to include fundamental values. Thus in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Pierson, Lord Steyn said that ‘Parliament does not legislate in a vacuum’ but ‘for a European liberal democracy founded on the principles and traditions of the common law’.13 And in R v Secretary of State, ex p Simms, Lord Hoffman said that while Parliament can override fundamental rights, the principle of legality means that ‘Parliament must squarely confront what it is doing and accept the political cost. Fundamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous words. This is because there is too great a risk that the full implications of their unqualified meaning may have passed unnoticed in the democratic 11 Ibid 133, ¶ 29. 12 Ibid 139, ¶ 49. 13 [1997] 3 WLR 492, at 518