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808   4 September 2003   

Falconer sets about the Judiciary...
 ...but he should go further

Charlie Falconer is making great progress, in opening up the Judiciary.  Judicial appointments are to be made by an Appointments Panel with a lay majority, drawn from outside the legal profession.   

But he should go further.  Why should a High Court Judge have to be a lawyer at all?  After all, the overwhelming majority of our cases are decided by lay Magistrates, who simply have a lawyer advising them, and explaining “the law”.  And a High Court Judge has the additional advantage of being addressed by two or three lawyers (barristers) appearing for the parties.  Medical doctors sit as Coroners, making similar important decisions, following legal advice and representation.  And it is by no means self-evident that Judges “must be” lawyers – indeed, it is a rule of the Swiss Supreme Constitutional Court that professional lawyers are specifically barred from Court membership!    

If a non-lawyer High Court judge made a mistake of law, having heard all the evidence and argument, the Court of Appeal could correct that mistake, as at the moment.  I do not advocate lay members of the Court of Appeal: that Court should consist of senior, authoritative lawyers.  But why should the legal profession otherwise have a monopoly of the basic “judging job”, at first instance?  The job is not like plumbing, or brain surgery, or flying a Boeing 737 – the parties’ lawyers have the principal task of setting out the case, both as to fact and law.  Many able people could do it, just as many able people sit on juries.
  • Charlie should open up the job to competition.

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809  8 September  2003  

After Campbell

In dissecting the underlying Alistair Campbell issues last week, I was wrong to have used the specific term “devolution”.  To judge from your response, this has become a term with a very narrow current meaning, conveying provincial devolution, Scots/Welsh style.  What I meant was “dispersal, or redistribution” in a much more general sense.  To minimise the destructive effect of the Westminster rapids, Labour should deliberately disperse the power of No 10, however sweet its attractions may sometimes seem to the present generation of Ministers.. 

  • Ministers, while regularly conversing together and seeking to convey a coherent political narrative, should have greater departmental discretion, a wider remit to experiment and fail;  it was Campbell’s view that every Party had to offer the electorate a coherent “narrative” of life, and I greatly value that perception;

  • Commons Committees should be strengthened, and less reliance placed upon the undemocratic processes of the House of Lords

  • Regional/provincial Assemblies should be given serious powers, at least along Welsh lines.

  • Popular access to office should be widened, both by election and random selection, without relying on old-boy networks and restrictive selection processes

  • Throughout society, greater discretion should be accorded to local institutions, without impairing the Party’s “narrative”.

For Labour, with its political history of successful centralisation and nationalisation, such new thinking does not come easily.  The Party’s future “narrative” will have to be crafted and drafted much more carefully, to allow for the retention of greater power by bodies outside Westminster.  Only if that is done will the Westminster meeja storms start to abate.

  • The current changes at No 10,
    by contrast, are merely cosmetic.

What do you think?  Drop me a line

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