Governance of Britain: Selection of Judges

http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=128615  

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips has called on the government to stay away from the selection of judges in the wake of ‘The Governance of Britain’ green paper published by the Ministry of Justice. Phillips claims that the Blair administration’s shake-up of the justice system had important implications for the independence of the judiciary.  

This ties into public law and the issue of keeping judges/judicial system as a unbiased third party that should interpret statues and Acts of Parliaments as they see fit. This occurs when ambiguity exists in certain statutes. The Rule of Law, as we have seen, claims that no governmental figure shall be above the law. Keeping judges as unbiased mediators of the law helps this – Dicey claimed ‘equality before the law – equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law.’ It is vital that the courts serve as an unbiased body independent of the legislature which made the law, and that they act independently of the executive in interpreting the meaning of laws.

Phillips came out explicitly against any suggestion of electing judges, putting himself in opposition to the green paper published by the MoJ this year.  I’m only aware of one Commonwealth country where parliament is involved in judicial appointments, and that is Mozambique. I, for one, can see no need for such an innovation in the UK.” 

Also touches on separation of power (particularly question 5 of tutorial – sep of power )

By Tariq Teja