Constitutional Renewal II: an independent judiciary?, Andrew Blick

Andrew Blick — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:37:32 +0100

This is the second in a series of posts by Andrew Blick on the Constitutional Renewal Bill. You can read the first post here.

Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): There is a crucial tension within the Governance of Britain programme. On the one hand it sets out to provide greater independence to the judiciary. On the other hand it proposes making the legal system more accountable to Parliament. On the strength of Tuesday's evidence session with the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, this problem needs closer attention than it is currently receiving.

In theory everyone should take an interest in they way they are governed and their rights – but in practice they don’t. For this reason the important issues raised by the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill are much more likely to achieve traction when they engage a particular interest group. Yesterday’s session of the Joint Committee was well-attended, because it attracted the interest of the legal profession, which is to its credit consistently the most likely to become involved in constitutional matters. (The government consultation on judicial appointments received 34 responses, compared to a paltry 11 for treaties.)

Tim Dutton QC, Chairman of the Bar Council, and Andrew Holroyd, President of the Law Society, were questioned about the Renewal proposals for judicial appointments. Vital principles are at stake here and it is a shame that time was wasted by one committee member, a solicitor, demanding to know why more solicitors were not appointed judges; and another making a rambling speech about the need to appoint judges on a basis of merit, which the witnesses assured us was the position already. Read the rest of this post...

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Constitutional Renewal II: an independent judiciary?, Andrew Blick