Judges dig in to defend their position

Judicial accountability has to be balanced against the need for an independent and impartial judiciary, judges claim.

In their response to a House of Lords’ Select Committee report on relations between the executive, the judiciary and Parliament, judges say that recent constitutional changes, including the removal of the lord chief justice as head of the judiciary, have led to a new interest in their accountability.

The judges describe how individual judges are accountable to the public because “in general their decisions are in public and are discussed, often critically, in the media and by interest groups and sections of the public affected by them”. They add that the judiciary is similarly “institutionally accountable” in respect of first instance and appellate decisions.

The response makes clear that neither individual judges nor the judiciary are (nor should be) accountable to the executive branch of the state as this would be inimical to judicial independence. Judges say they regard this independence as a “necessary requirement” for the discharge of their core responsibility to resolve disputes fairly and impartially.

The response emphasised that individual judges should not be asked to give media briefings and that judges and magistrates should not appear routinely before select committees for fear of stepping beyond the proper boundary between the judiciary and Parliament.