Is our lord chancellor’s honeymoon with the legal profession over? Brummie barrister Shabana Mahmood won hearts and minds last summer with her pledges to support the rule of law and the justice system against austerity. Lately, however, things have turned a little frosty.
Last month Mahmood received a stern letter from the lady chief justice about remarks made by her boss at prime minister’s question time. She also seems to have found herself locking horns with judges in the simmering ‘two-tier’ row over Sentencing Council guidance.
The council’s chair, Lord Justice William Davis, this week said he would have to take legal advice on Mahmood’s powers over the council’s work. As the BBC observed: ‘This raises the bizarre possibility that the body advising judges on how to judge might decide to go to court for a ruling on whether the minister overseeing justice has any power to tell judges what to do.’
Never mind, at least the Ministry of Justice has managed to placate critics by levering some crumbs from the Treasury for more court sitting days. This week, it even found £1.5m down the back of the sofa to keep the LawtechUK programme on the road for another year. Oddly, the lord chancellor left those announcements to a subordinate, Sarah Sackman KC. Thus defying the convention that the secretary of state should always be the minister bearing the good news.
Politics can be a steep learning curve.
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