The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, has told reporters that she is “deeply troubled” by a recent exchange between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition during Prime Minister’s Questions – and that she has written to the Lord Chancellor to complain. This is an extraordinary, and extraordinarily ill-advised, intervention in the political process, which the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition should firmly rebuff.
There is no evidence that occasional ministerial criticism of judgments imperils judicial independence
The parliamentary exchange to which Baroness Carr took exception concerned a recent decision of the Upper Tribunal allowing a Palestinian family in Gaza, who had a relative living in the UK, to enter the country. The Upper Tribunal judge ruled that the Home Secretary had breached the Article 8 right to respect for family and private life by denying the family’s entry to the UK.
The Gaza judgment was widely reported and decried, with the Prime Minister agreeing with the Leader of Opposition that the judgment was mistaken and saying that the Home Secretary would bring forward a change in the law to close what he termed “a loophole”. Keir
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