Constitutional vandalism

Anthony Lloyd says that the government’s plan to replace the law lords is an attack on tradition, and pointless too

On 12 June the Prime Minister issued a press release announcing that the ‘post of Lord Chancellor’ would be abolished. The announcement came as a complete surprise to everybody, not least the law lords. For in the same press release the Prime Minister also announced the government’s intention to create a new supreme court to replace the law lords. One would have thought that the law lords would have been consulted in advance, or at least informed. But they were not.

The proposed changes were presented as a package to modernise the relationship between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. But the position of the law lords is quite different from that of the Lord Chancellor. I can understand the argument that the Lord Chancellor as a member of the executive should not sit as a judge.