David Lidington MP has been sworn in as Lord Chancellor—the fourth non-legally qualified incumbent in a row, following Liz Truss, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling.
The former Europe minister and Leader of the Commons supported repealing the Human Rights Act 1998, but has been welcomed by both the Bar Council and Law Society. Writing in this week’s NLJ, columnist Jon Robins notes that he spoke up for the principle of judicial independence during the Article 50 Supreme Court case last November, when the Daily Mail attacked the judges as ‘Enemies of the people’.
Judicial independence was a key concern of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, last week, during a lecture in which he highlighted the ‘special qualities’ required of a Lord Chancellor.
Giving the Michael Ryle Memorial lecture in Westminster, Lord Thomas stopped short of saying Lord Chancellors should be legally qualified. However, he did criticise as ‘broad and ill-defined’ a statutory requirement (s 2 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005) that the Lord Chancellor have experience as a Minister, be an MP or Peer, a legal practitioner, a university law teacher and any other experience the prime minister considers relevant.
‘Importantly they do not specify what amounts to being sufficiently qualified through such experience,’ he said.
‘I do not think that it is right…that a provision inserted into the 2005 Act should be treated as ineffective. There is considerable force in the evidence of Lord Falconer…that the criteria were inserted in order that a signal should be given to the prime minister that you need somebody of special quality and…able to carry out the special responsibilities of the office.’
