Judged

When Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, negotiated a deal on the relationship between the Judiciary and the Executive and the judges so notably failed to resist the Labour assault upon the office of Lord Chancellor and the Constitution itself, as if no more was taking place than changing the title of some ministerial role, he called the deal a Concordat.

The Concordat (give a deal a posh name) has been ignored; the judicial arm of the Constitution has been significantly diminished.

Minister for Justice Straw, and Lord Chancellor, (they couldn’t quite get rid of all those ragged, torn off bits and bobs of our Constitution still clinging to the once great Office of State) told the Constitutional Affairs Committee of MPs this week, the Times Law section reports , that ‘it was understandable that given the past four years, the equilibrium of the relationship between judges and the Executive had been “jolted”.’

So the procedures of the Judicial Appointments Commission, causing “widespread concern at every level of the judiciary” are to be speeded up. The Minister promises to “turn around” recommendations for judicial appointments in 24 hours, or a weekend - though what the Executive is doing interfering in judicial appointments at all is not mentioned.

The Leader's proposals for confirmation hearings or questioning of prospective judicial candidates by politicians have not been dismissed out of hand as out of order, as they should have been, despite the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers’ strong opposition. Minister Straw merely states, “My default position would be to leave things as they are because they have just undergone change.”

And the review of the setting up of a Ministry of Justice at all? Kicked into the long grass by Straw who offers ‘a small working party, involving a district judge and a senior official, to look at the relationship between the Courts Service and the Ministry of Justice.’

The Minister says that while there will not be agreement with the judges on everything there will be “an absolute understanding on everything”.

They will know their new place.