Clause 11 - Resignation and removal of lay justices
Courts Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
This is a series of probing amendments on a subject that the Minister must have known would arise at some stage in our proceedings. The point of the amendments is to try to divine what exactly the Department had in mind about the future role of the Lord Chancellor in relation to judicial appointments. I put the amendments forward not as a comprehensive list of all the places where one could substitute ''Chief Justice'' for ''Chancellor'', but simply as test cases to stimulate debate on the subject.
We are told that the Lord Chancellor will bow out of the process of judicial appointments. I welcome that. There have been strong arguments for a long time for the Lord Chancellor not to combine his various roles. There will be debates on the matter and proposals will be discussed. However, we are debating a Bill that will create a new raft of judicial appointment functions for the Lord Chancellor at a time when he is only Lord Chancellor for the interim period. His official title is included in the Government list and will change.
Judicial appointments are best left to the judiciary and, under my proposal, the person who will nominally be the head of the judiciary will be the Lord Chief Justice. It is open for the Minister to say that I have interpreted matters wrongly and that the head of the judiciary will continue to be the Lord Chancellor. I hope that he will not say that. The Minister could say that I had got it wrong and that another judicial personage will be the appropriate head of the magistracy. I should be content with that,
but it would be helpful to know the Government's thinking.
It is unacceptable for us to pass into law a new statute, which runs entirely counter to the Government's declared policy in such matters. I may have more to say when I have heard the Minister's reply. I do not want to labour the point now, but to explore his thinking about who should be making such appointments.