1. Fwiw, Labour constitution is a crap piece of legal drafting. But here are some thoughts.
http://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Rule-Book-2013.pdf …
2. Most relevant part is Chapter 4 - but a court would consider context of rule book as a whole, so don't fixate on a particular clause.
3. Chapter 4(1) provides elections "shall be
conducted in a fair, open and transparent manner". Fairness is key. Even-handedness
4. This would mean candidates must be treated equally, unless there is a specific reason otherwise. So this is starting point.
5. Chapter 4(II) goes on to provide how these fair elections should take place. 4(II)2(b) is our next stop. (Sorry for number/letter soup.)
6. A vacancy under (i) places candidates on level playing field. So fairness is achieved easily.
7. We come then to (ii), when there is no vacancy. The first sentence is about timing of challenger nominations.
8. The problem IMO is the second sentence. Does that apply only to challengers or all nominations?
9. There is nothing in that second sentence to limit it to challengers in the first sentence: "any". So can include incumbent (ie Corbyn).
10. Looking at provision as a whole, sub-clauses iv to vi only really make sense if leader included as a nominee in ii.
11. So: applying rule of fairness, and looking at clause as whole, I can't see anything which means incumbent given advantage re nominees.
12. Had the rules intended an incumbent leader an unfair advantage re clause I fairness, they would have said so. But they don't.
13. There is room for dispute, views will differ. But IMO, more likely than not that a court would hold Corbyn needs same nominations
