The Hindu : Blair abolishes U.K.'s oldest institution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 14, 2003

International

International

Blair abolishes U.K.'s oldest institution

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JUNE 13. Britain's 1,400-year-old unique constitutional arrangement, which made the House of Lords the highest court of appeal in the land, is to be scrapped and replaced by a U.S.-style Supreme Court in a sweeping and controversial reform announced by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The historic and somewhat anachronistic office of the Lord Chancellor, who presided over the House of Lords, appointed judges as well as sat on the court of appeal, has been abolished in a move to free the judiciary from political control. The House of Lords would now have a Speaker, a political figure with no say in judicial affairs. Until now, Britain was perhaps the only modern democracy where a Cabinet Minister — the Lord Chancellor — headed the judiciary which was seen as incompatible with the concept of separation of powers inherent in a parliamentary system. In future, judges would be appointed by a Judicial Appointments Commission, an independent body, and a new mechanism would be set up to vet judicial appointments.

"We will have an independent operation which people have been clamouring for many years," the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, said.

The dramatic changes were announced to coincide with the retirement of the incumbent Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, who would be remembered as the last relic of a system that is believed to be older than any other British institution, except the Crown.

The first Lord High Chancellor, as he was then known, was appointed in 605 AD and until the 14th century, he was "invariably a priest (who) undertook all the secretarial work of the royal household, including dealing with the accounts, writs and royal correspondence," The Times recalled in a nostalgic farewell to the last direct link between the monarch and Parliament.

The move, which came as Mr. Blair shuffled his Cabinet, was welcomed by modernisers but attacked by Tories who accused the Prime Minister of "tearing up" thousand-year-old history without proper consultation. "The Prime Minister has announced yet another trendy constitutional upheaval worked out on the back of an envelope, hopelessly ill-thought through," the Shadow Leader of the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, said.

There was also anger among Peers over the appointment of Lord Falconer, a controversial friend of Mr. Blair, as Secretary of State of Constitutional Affairs to replace the Lord Chancellor.

One Tory Peer said he had "never been so angry in the 30 years I have been in office."

But pro-change MPs and civil rights groups hailed the abolition of the office of the Lord Chancellor, saying the separation between the judiciary and the legislature was long overdue. "Some may lament the abolition of a position which has an even longer history than that of Prime Minister, but a modern democracy needs to be based on sensible and logical rules, not on anachronistic traditions... This marks an important and welcome step in securing and underlining the independent, non-political nature of our legal system," the civil liberties group, Liberty, said.

But many even among the pro-changers felt there was lack of clarity over the shape of the new system and warned against imitating the American model without a proper debate.

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