Previously I in this column The Monstrous Regiment of Judges
Nevertheless, I have a high regard for Judges, I know several personally that are I consider to be excellent. I acknowledge that throughout history the judiciary have been a bulwark in the creation and defence of our liberty.
That said, on Tuesday, during questions to the Secretary of State for Justice, the Lord Chancellor took every opportunity to lecture MPs telling us not to compromise the independence of the judiciary. In my estimate however, criticising judges and their decisions does not compromise their independence. Members of Parliament have an absolute right to give voice to the exasperation of constituents about some judicial decisions. We would only compromise judicial independence if we sought to influence them beforehand or to take their decisions ourselves.
It is perfectly proper that judges, and the manner in which they are appointed, are scrutinised in Parliament.
Over recent weeks there have been a series of bizarre judgements at immigration tribunals, preventing the deportation of foreign offenders. It raises the question of how some of the judges at these tribunals ever came to be appointed.
Blatant political partiality should certainly disqualify any candidate. We do, after all, aspire to an ‘independent’ judiciary. Nevertheless, one such judge who determines asylum and deportation appeals, publicly supported Labour’s plans to scrap the Rwanda scheme and for illegal entry into the United Kingdom to be decriminalised. He has even said that the Conservative Party should be treated the same way as Nazis and cancer!
How on earth was he ever get past the most rudimentary scrutiny process?
The Judicial Appointments Commission is the body responsible for selecting judges. Its Chairman is Helen Pitcher KC, who resigned in January this year as chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, having been rebuked for failing in her duties during one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent memory (Andy Malkinson was imprisoned for 17 years for a rape he did not commit). Yet she is still in charge of judicial appointments.
As Robert Jenrick complained in the Commons “Her commission has failed to conduct the most basic checks on potential judges, either out of sheer incompetence, or out of sympathy with their hard-left views on open borders. The commission is broken and is bringing the independence of the judiciary into disrepute. How much longer will it take for the Justice Secretary to act and remove the chair of this commission from her position and defend the independence and reputation of the judiciary?”
Strong Stuff. Nevertheless, it would be remiss of me, not to welcome the sanity of the Supreme Court judgement in their ruling that, in law, ‘woman’ means a biological woman (with the 23rd Pair of XY chromosomes in each and every cell).
Actually, the judgement is very balanced and protective of the rights of those suffering from gender dysphoria.
In my experience, those that suffer from the condition, always felt that they were born in the wrong body, and they are not obsessed with participating in competitive female sports or which lavatories they use. They are misrepresented by the activists who seek to tell our children that there are 68 genders, or the grotesque wish of rapists to be incarcerated in female prisons.
Some constituents have demanded to know why that decision was one for the Court and not Parliament. The role of the Court is to determine what the laws passed by Parliament actually mean in practice. Parliament remains supreme: if it doesn’t like the interpretation reached by the Court, it can legislate to change the law.