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Raab & the declining status of Lord Chancellor

© Copyright LexisNexis 2026. All Rights Reserved.
01 October 2021 / David Greene
Issue: 7950 / Categories: Opinion , Constitutional law , Profession
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David Greene compares & contrasts the new Lord Chancellor to his predecessors

Dominic Raab, a solicitor, takes the reins at the Ministry of Justice replacing Robert Buckland as Lord Chancellor at ‘interesting’ times for the law, the justice process and the professions. The reaction of the new Lord Chancellor and others to the appointment may cause us to forget that the office of Lord Chancellor is the highest ranking of the Great Officers of State. It is ironic that a measure to appease Mr Raab was to appoint him also Deputy Prime Minster despite the office of Lord Chancellor outranking that of the Prime Minister. In the political world the role of Lord Chancellor is not what it was.

In that world the role of Lord Chancellor was probably the height of Robert Buckland QC’s political career. Buckland was a former criminal practitioner and part time judge. He had a deep knowledge of the practice of criminal law, which was important in the pandemic due to the

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