Some may scoff at the pageantry and pomp, and Obiter would agree that some things are best consigned to the history books. But the commencement of a new lord chancellor’s tenure is all rather uplifting. The heavy robes, the mace of office, the grandiloquent speeches. And oaths that cover all the bases.
Last week’s ceremony was beautifully choreographed, and quite right too. After all, the Royal Courts of Justice tipstaff has had plenty of practice in recent years. Particularly so because the swearing-in had to be shoe-horned into the run-up to Wednesday’s state opening of parliament, where the lord chancellor was again centre stage.
A good swearing-in needs speeches sprinkled with a few laughs and some emotion, and which are concise enough to enable the listener to rise from the wooden benches of Courtroom 4 without pins and needles.
This was far from Obiter’s first swearing-in – though the importance of firsts was clear. Someone on the benches wiped away a tear as Shabana Mahmood thanked her parents in Urdu, and wondered at the ‘girl from Small Heath’ who would never have dreamed of such an occasion.
Fancy, a female LCJ welcoming a female LC. We didn’t get our second female High Court judge until the 1970s. Double history – or triple, counting the fact Mahmood is the first Muslim LC too.
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