Law Weblog

Major constitutional statements by Lord Chief Justice

Tuesday 20 October 2009 at 10:04 pm | In News | Post Comment First, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge today restated the centuries old ‘fundamental principle’ that the courts should not try to interfere with what MPs do and say. He went on to say that it was not constitutionally proper for a court to make an order that has that effect.

The warnings followed the injunction obtained by an oil company Trafigura, which effectively suppressed a question asked in Parliament by Labour MP Paul Farrelly.

Second, he called for Parliament to pass new libel laws to reverse the effect of restrictive rulings by British courts which have made London the libel capital of the world.

Several American states including California have passed laws which mean local citizens do not have to obey libel judgements laid down in British courts.

The governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger objected when a British judge ordered all copies of a book about a Saudi oil sheikh’s alleged support for terrorism to be pulped, even though the had never been published in Britain.

Third, Lord Judge warned against any attempt to restrict the prosecution of criminals because of the cost of a trial, which has been proposed by the Director of Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC.

Lord Judge said: “I am perfectly happy with the idea that for very minor infringements of the criminal law by an individual of good character, a warning or a caution is a perfectly sensible way of dealing with it.”
“What I am not happy about is out-of-court disposals for things said to be very minor which are not in fact very minor. I am not in favour of out-of-court disposals for infringements of the criminal law by people who have committed infringements before.”