What MPs should know
Lady chief justice tries to stop them acting inappropriately
The lady chief justice of England and Wales has expanded the pool of parliamentary liaison judges to help members of parliament better understand the work of the judiciary, judicial independence and the important role that it plays for their constituents, she wrote in her first annual report to parliament yesterday.
There are currently three liaison judges who join her at parliamentary events or represent her if she cannot attend. They serve for three years, engaging with clerks and committees to improve MPs’ knowledge of the judiciary.
Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill said that MPs were being invited by local judges to visits courts and tribunals in their constituencies. However, she had also continued her discussions with Daniel Greenberg CB, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, on how on to stop MPs “writing to courts and tribunals, on behalf of their constituents, to seek inappropriate information on the progress of specific cases”.
Because her report covers the year that began in October 2023, she cannot be confining her remarks about “inappropriate instances” of interference with judicial independence to the new intake of MPs who arrived in July. But parliamentarians’ concerns about delay are understandable, if misplaced.
Carr thanked judges in the Crown Court who had worked to reduce the high backlog of cases. “Despite these efforts,” she added, “the backlog has continued to rise, caused in part by an increase in receipts and a complex case mix.”
She was particularly grateful to judges who dealt quickly with cases arising from the civil disorder in late July and early August. That had helped bring the disturbances to an end, she reported:
The criminal justice system responded at pace to prioritise these cases, ensuring confidence in the system and undoubtedly acted as a deterrent for further public disorder taking place.
The magistrates’ courts were at the frontline in dealing with these cases. This involved sitting late to ensure cases were dealt with quickly and effectively in the interest of justice.
These were exceptionally challenging circumstances with heightened personal anxiety and the lady chief justice commends the magistrates’ courts for all their efforts and all those working in the criminal justice system who ensured that these cases were prioritised.
Comment
Carr’s report is attractively produced and available, for the first time, in Welsh. It includes some fascinating details, such as an “unusually challenging negotiation”, over 18 months, with commercial suppliers of online, print and eBook publications. Its aim was to provide judges with the “widest possible range of publications for the best possible value” — and it succeeded.
And while readers may be disappointed to be reminded that their elected representatives have only a limited understanding of their place in the British constitution, it is gratifying to find the judiciary trying to do something about it.
I was disappointed to find no mention of the Single Justice Procedure in the magistrates’ courts, although it was an issue that was raised at her press conference in February. And I was surprised to discover that the new Transparency and Open Justice Board has no members representing the magistrates’ courts at all.
I am with Robert Zara on both of his points: it does seem strange and even contradictory to have praised the magistracy for having taken up the exceptional challenge so well and then for it to have no representation from the Magistrates’s Courts on that board. After all, far more civilians the system is there to serve have experience just of that lowest tier rather than with its higher strata.
That said I am all for our elected representatives in Westminster being exposed to knowledge of the system as it is, rather than as so many of them blithely imagine it to be. I must say that i had found it far too frequent an occurrence for comfort when either a complainant’s or an accused’s MP would strive to influence and even half expect to have reversed a decision to continue with or to abandon a prosecution. The separation of the powers seemed on occasion to be a concept too far. But then in so far as I can ascertain in education at all levels save for education directly in the law as a prospective career neither constitutional nor legal strands seem very much to feature. They ought surely to do so and at as early an educational stage as possible. Troubling also, albeit understandable (?), is the premise that students would merely wish to learn of and pursue those fields of law guaranteeing them a handsome living on qualification, rather than the focus also -as vital- being on poor law with its lesser monetary rewards though essential to the community our caring profession is there to serve.