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07 August 2008 / David Pope
Issue: 7333 / Categories: Opinion
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Location, location, location

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The law lords' move to Middlesex Guildhall cannot happen soon enough, says David Pope

When Lord Falconer announced i n Dec ember 2004 that Middlesex Guildhall would be expensively renovated to house the new UK Supreme Court, I confess that I was sceptical. With so many deserving calls on public funds, I wondered how the government could sensibly justify spending £30m to move the 12 law lords from one side of Parliament Square to the other. I suspected a vanity project: the former Lord Chancellor wanted to put the bling into New Labour's dabbling in constitutional reform.

Change of Heart

I am a sceptic no longer. Not that my change of heart owes anything to the patter on the Ministry of Justice's website. I sincerely doubt that relocating the most senior judges in the land to a building a few hundred metres from the Palace of Westminster will play much part in “further separating the judiciary from the legislature”. And there is probably any number of sites in central London other than Middlesex Guildhall that

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