Blog: 17/06/2022 - Helen McGrath, Head of Public Affairs

Two years after Sir Alex Allan resigned in 2020 as Ethics Adviser, we now have the resignation of Lord Geidt, whose job it was (amongst other things) to advise on the ministerial code.  

In his resignation letter, Lord Geidt refers to the lack of explanation in the PM’s response to his annual report, to the Sue Gray finding and criticism of ‘a lack of adherence to the Nolan principals’. It further refers to being ‘tasked to offer a view about the Government's intention to consider measures which risk a deliberate and purposeful breach of the Ministerial Code’ [which], ‘….has placed me in an impossible and odious position’. Governance it seems, continues to make troubling headline news.  

Alongside these recent events, we also have the Prime Minister’s frankly dangerous   attack on lawyers this week. To say that lawyers acting on behalf of immigrants were "abetting the work of criminal gangs" and that laws may have to be changed because lawyers were “very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the Government from upholding what we think is a sensible law” was quite extraordinary. LLG supports the joint statement issued by the Law Society and Bar Council on Wednesday asking the Prime Minister to stop attacks on legal professionals performing their proper functions. 

If you want to examine the relationship between government and the judiciary further, take a look at the report by an all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution published on 8^th June, following an inquiry into the impact of the actions and rhetoric of the executive since 2016 on the constitutional role of the judiciary. The report was funded by the Joseph Rowntree reform trust, which is important to note, because it is not published by Parliament but independent of it. 

The report found that ministers have, in attacking judges, “sometimes failed to act in a constitutionally proper or helpful manner” and that the “offices of Lord Chancellor and Attorney General, and the appointment of politicians with little or no legal experience or standing, has left the executive without a strong figure to assist ministers’ understanding of their constitutional duties”.  

The APPG made three principal recommendations. 

 1. Highlight the independence of the judiciary in the forthcoming independent review of the Constitutional Reform Act. 

 2. Provide statutory guidance for ministers on their constitutional duties towards the judiciary. 

 3. Provide statutory guidance on the appointment and conduct of  Law Ministers. 

Geraint Davies MP and chair of the APPG, wrote within the report ‘Democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are our fundamental values. They rely on an independent judicial system to protect the rights of the citizen from the state and to defend our democracy’. 

Best wishes 

Helen McGrath 

Head of Public Affairs