Philips v Faulker over the rule of law

Daniel Leighton (London, Power Inquiry): When will the constitution really matter? Only when citizens are shot in the street, according to the Guardian’s Martin Kettle. Then he backtracks, a little. (Could it be the nervousness of a Blair groupie entering the age of Brown?) To his credit, he does take on a major story that the rest of the press ignores. This Tuesday will see crucial session of Alan Beith’s constitutional affairs select committee. It will consider whether the independence of our judiciary is under threat from the new Ministry of Justice, produced by John Reid like a rabbit out of a hat before he himself disappeared (see Geoffrey Bindman’s post in OurKingdom). Evidence will be taken from the Chief Justice Lord Philips saying there is a grave threat and the Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer saying there is not. The heart of the ‘independence of the judiciary’ concerns whether the government is subject to the rule of law. When the executive has the power to subordinate the courts to its will it is a step towards dictatorship. Must we get to this point before we express alarm? Kettle grants that the issue is "a big one". Then has a slap at all those liberal types who are talking about “a far reaching constitutional crisis”. According to Kettle: “A constitutional crisis about judicial independence is what they have in Pakistan… which culminated in 41 deaths on the streets of Karachi”. Well, thanks a bunch. Falconer came to a privately negotiated ‘concordat’ with Lord Woolf, Philip’s predecessor, which supposedly secured the independence of the judiciary. Has it broken down? We will see if Beith’s committee can bring this hugely important issue clearly into the public realm.