Law Weblog

The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice start today as separate departments.

Wednesday 9 May 2007 at 1:54 am | In News | Post Comment

The Ministry of Justice is in charge of prisons, probation and sentencing. The Home Office will retain policy for security, crime, drugs, counter-terrorism and ID cards.

The split was deemed necessary after Home Secretary John Reid said a year ago that the Home Office was “not fit for purpose”.

John Reid will head the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer will head the new Ministry of Justice, formerly the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Lord Falconer’s new ministry will have to deal with the overcrowding of prisons in England and Wales.

In addition to criticism from political opposition parties the new arrangements has it critics in the judiciary. The judges see the single budget of the new department being competed for by prisons and the probation service, they fear that sentencing will be affected by cost and this they claim this breaches constitutional independence.

Constitutional Reform Act 2005
Senior judges have been openly talking about the “nuclear option”. This would involve the Lord Chief Justice reporting to Parliament that the Lord Chancellor has breached his statutory duty under the Constitutional Reform Act to protect the independence of the administration of justice.

The new Minister of Justice will be subject to regular challenges in the courts, particularly over prisons and penal policy, this, the judges say this may compromise presiding judge who will be ruling on prison matters and against the same minister who is in charge of their budget.

Under the previous arrangement the Home Secretary did not meet judges, but the Lord Chancellor has a constitutional relationship with the Lord Chief Justice under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and has to be in constant dialogue over judicial matters.