UK's Top Judges Angered By 'Hasty' Splitting Of Home Office And Justice Ministry

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

24 May 2007

Following an evidence session last week by the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee to discuss the newly created Ministry of Justice, fears of a constitutional crisis have been raised by the objections of some of the UK's leading judges to the new department.

The Ministry of Justice was recently split from the Home Office, taking with it responsibility for sentencing policy, prisons, and probation, and leaving the Home Office to concentrate on matters such as immigration, security, policing and terrorism.

However, senior judges have condemned the move as 'hasty', expressing grave concerns regarding the safeguarding of the independence of the judiciary, and have demanded a ring-fenced budget in order to prevent the new Ministry from diverting resources away from the judiciary, and towards prisons and probation.

Concerns have also been expressed that judges will come under pressure to consider non-judicial matters such as prisoner numbers when delivering their verdicts under the new regime.

According to reports in the UK media this week, Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips has denied that the matter represents a constitutional crisis, calling it instead a "constitutional problem".

However, he told the Select Committee that the judiciary continued to believe that a review of their constitutional position is essential, and that the judges and the government were "poles apart" in their views on the need for a review.

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