Geoffrey Bindman (London, BIHR): As Gordon Brown prepares to address the House of Commons and introduce his constitutional reforms, one significant change has already taken place. Jack Straw is both Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. The first of these two offices is now the only one that counts - a sad fate for the second, after nearly 1,000 years it deserves a better burial.
Until 2005 the Lord Chancellor had a multiplicity of roles: he sat on the ancient woolsack as speaker of the House of Lords; as head of the judicial system he appointed the judges; he sat as chief judge in the House of Lords Judicial Committee, and he was a cabinet minister. When Lord Irvine, Tony Blair's mentor as a young barrister, held the position, it become one of the most powerful in the land.
But its conflicting responsibilities made it ripe for reform. Now all its meaningful functions have been stripped away and redistributed. Jack Straw is the first Lord Chancellor since the 17th century who is not even a peer.
Does this matter? Practically not much but for one thing: the Lord Chancellor was a strong voice in support of judicial independence at the very heart of government. Jack Straw is still technically the head of the judiciary. He has a statutory obligation to uphold its independence. But he has never been a judge and the senior judiciary will not easily see a career politician as their ideal representative. Brown will be more respectful of the judges than Blair in his last days, as he needs to be, but for Jack Straw to win their trust will be a challenge to his diplomatic skills - and his time as he takes responsibility for an unprecedented programme of reforms. There is much talk about the need to strengthen parliament, will it be at the expense of our tradition of judicial independence.
