Lord Chancellor's Speech: Law and politics - the nightmare and the noble dream.
M2 PRESSWIRE-March 26, 2021-: Lord Chancellor's Speech: Law and politics - the nightmare and the noble dream
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RDATE:25032021
Introduction and the role of the Lord Chancellor
Thank you, Richard [Johnson, School of Politics and International Relations, QMUL]. It's a pleasure to join you and everyone online.
It has been claimed on various occasions, most recently by my friend and colleague the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons that one expert on the constitution believes, and I quote, that it 'has always been puzzling and always will be.' I say quote because the expert in question is no less than Her Majesty the Queen. But I think I had better leave it there for the sake of well-known propriety. Let me start by saying how grateful I am to the School of Politics and International Relations for the invitation, and to Queen Mary University for the opportunity to speak today as we continue to puzzle over our constitution.
Now, those who are privileged to serve as Lord Chancellor have, I believe, a unique responsibility with regard to our constitutional arrangements. As part of the Executive, the Lord Chancellor naturally wants the government to be as effective as possible in delivering on its agenda - we should not apologise or be defensive about that in any way, it is what voters expect from their government frankly. But at the same time, the Lord Chancellor has an important - a vital - duty to protect the Judiciary, not just in the single jurisdiction of England and Wales, but throughout our United Kingdom.
For instance, the Lord Chancellor retains the power to determine the remuneration of specified judicial offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the rationale being that this goes to the unique constitutional position of the Lord Chancellor and their duty to uphold the independence of the Judiciary throughout the UK - without compromising, of course, the integrity of those three separate and historic jurisdictions. The Lord Chancellor's role is also to champion those aspects of the three different legal systems that they share in common, namely an excellent Judiciary and a top-quality legal profession; to promote the value of the UK justice system on the global stage and the values that have made it such a success. So, the Lord Chancellor is therefore very much a UK-wide role.
As our system continues to evolve to serve the needs of our citizens, as it has over many centuries, the delicate balance between our institutions and the ways in which they interact between the nations of the United Kingdom inevitably requires fine tuning. The Lord Chancellor has a vital role to play in carrying out that work and, as the current holder of the office, I am taking forward a series of reviews to examine the balance in different contexts. As you will know, last year I set up the Independent Review of Administrative Law. And I am pleased to say that the Panel has produced a fine report, which analysed the trends seen in judicial review over the previous decades, as well as evaluating the diverse views that are held about them. And a week ago, I launched a consultation outlining my proposals for reform which emanate from the Panel's recommendations.
The ongoing Independent Review of the Human Rights Act chaired by Sir Peter Gross that was established earlier this year recently held a call for evidence, as many of you will know. Now, that review is concerned with the operation of the various aspects of the Human Rights Act and I look forward to reading the Panel's report, so that the government can consider how to respond.
Finally, I want to examine the role of the Lord Chancellor itself, in the context of the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005. Now, the Act brought in some sensible reforms, such as a greater degree of transparency in judicial appointments, but there are strands that are worth examining - to ensure that they have kept pace with the developments and continue to provide the appropriate framework for the Lord Chancellor to exercise their duties in respect of our constitutional arrangements. We are still in the early stages of that thinking and I am clear that I want to consider these matters in an open and consultative way. I look forward to talking about this in more detail in due course, but I do think there are elements that feed into the specifics of what I want to talk about today and that are worth considering first.
In the days when the Lord Chancellor was not only a Parliamentarian and a Cabinet Minister, but also sat on the bench and appointed all their judicial colleagues, the role was often described as a 'linchpin' that linked all three branches of the state and managed the relationships between them. Now Walter Bagehot was somewhat unimpressed with this arrangement, describing the role as 'a heap of anomalies'. My predecessor, Ken, now Lord Clarke, said the role was difficult to explain to people in other political systems as it 'sounded like something... made up'. The only other Lord Chancellor to have hailed from my home town of Llanelli, Lord Elwyn-Jones, described it perhaps as only he could in a more kindly way as, and I quote, 'an object of wonderment and perplexity'. The Lord Chancellor today
As you will know, the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 made sweeping reforms to the office of Lord Chancellor, the extent of which was brought home to me when on assuming office in 2019 I was obliged to resign my position as a Recorder of the Crown Court, a part-time judge.
The Act aimed to answer questions about separation of powers, but the reality is that we do not have a perfectly neat and defined separation of state powers - and I say amen to that. As a Tory, I accept and I embrace the imperfections of the human condition and indeed of government. Now, instead we have a system which is based on checks and balances. By changing the role of the Lord Chancellor in the ways that the previous government did - remaining as part of the Legislature and the Executive but no longer the Judiciary - we have lost the sense of the office being the linchpin between all three that I...
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