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Badó, Attila
2014.
Fair Trial and Judicial Independence.
Vol. 27,
Issue. ,
p.
27.
Article contents
The office of Lord Chancellor: time to abandon the judicial role – the rest will follow*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Abstract
This paper considers the viability of the office of Lord Chancellor. It focuses on the Lord Chancellor's judicial role and argues that a number of factors, most notably the dominance of his executive responsibilities, the political influence and style of the current incumbent, Lord Irvine, and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights through the Human Rights Act 1998, make its retention unsustainable. It therefore concludes that the Lord Chancellor should relinquish the role and no longer sit as judge. In the light of this conclusion, it moves on to look at the Lord Chancellor's responsibility for judicial appointments, his role as head of the judiciary, his position as a departmental minister in Cabinet and his function as Speaker in the House of Lords, and suggests that the nature of the office of Lord Chancellor is such that once the judicial role is relinquished, justifications for these other roles also disappear. The office should therefore be consigned to history, with other institutions assuming its responsibilities.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2002
Footnotes
*
This paper had its foundations in research undertaken for an ESRC-sponsored project ‘The Responsibilities and Accountability of the Lord Chancellor in a Market Economy’, R000222469, (1997-99).
References
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3. The Lord Chancellor already had responsibility for civil legal aid. Responsibility for criminal legal aid was transferred from the Law Society in 1989.
4. Indeed, legislation was passed in 1998 to enable a non-lawyer, Sir Hayden Phillips, to be appointed Permanent Secretary. A non-lawyer, Jenny Williams, was also appointed head of the Judicial Appointments Division in 2000.
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91. It is possible that the Law Lords themselves might be subject to challenge because of their legislative role.
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93. Above n 92.
94. Above n 92.
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96. Speech to the Worldwide Common Law Judiciary Conference, Edinburgh, July 1999.
97. Interview with Francis Gibbs, The Times, 17 July 2001.
98. There is no legal requirement for the Lord Chancellor to be a lawyer, although Lord Shaftesbury, who resigned in 1673, was the last non-lawyer to hold the position.
99. Baroness Smith (wife of the late John Smith, leader of the Labour Party) quoted in Egan, n 78 above, p 220.
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