TEO CHIN GHEE
First Year NUS Law, Associate Editor, SLR

“Judicial independence doesn’t require judicial isolation.”

That was the essence of “In Conversation with Lord Woolf”, a talk by the former Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2000 to 2005, Lord Harry Kenneth Woolf, held in the Subordinate Courts on 10 September 2008, during which he shared his personal insights about his time on the Bench.

His book, The Pursuit of Justice,   launched on 27 March 2008 – has garnered praise from many reviewers such as The Law Society Gazette (UK).. With the issues discussed in his book in mind, Lord Woolf presented his views on the tremendous change and reform that the English legal system underwent during his time as the Lord Chief Justice and the challenges that the judiciary faces today.

Highlighting the importance of separating the legislative, executive and the judiciary, he recounted his concern when Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor and the head of the judiciary, was also appointed the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs in 2003. As Lord Chief Justice at that time, Lord Woolf was perturbed as he felt that this move would blur the line between the respective duties of the legislative and the judiciary.

Calling this move “a constitutional change right at the heart of the system”, he emphasised the importance of the judiciary’s role in a working democracy, without which democracy would “become an elected dictatorship”.

In March 2004, in a speech at Cambridge University, Lord Woolf spoke out  against the Constitutional Reform Act that sought to create a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UK) that would replace the House of Lords as the final court of appeal in the UK and questioned the Lord Chancellor’s handling of recent constitutional reform. The debate over the Constitutional Reform Act, criticised by judges and lawyers alike, had just culminated in a concordat achieved by Lord Woolf with the Lord Chancellor, which would afford protection of the judiciary’s independence. That agreement put his concerns to ease.

Explaining his grounds for rejecting the bill to the audience in the Subordinate Courts, Lord Woolf said: “It seemed inevitable that judges will come into conflict with parliamentary decisions for the first time. A renouncement of these changes is based on no great principles of the law but great principles of justice.”

While Lord Woolf recognises the importance of judicial independence, he also subscribes to the belief that there should be “a spirit of partnership between the judiciary, the legislature and the executive”, which he views as crucial for the judiciary to meet the changing needs of society. With this in mind, he brought up one area of one judicial reform he wanted to achieve in England, which was the establishment of a proper legal aid system.  This, he believes, is the key to making justice accessible.

“The state has to recognise that it has to provide access not just to civil but also criminal justice. The English legal aid system used to provide the most monetary aid out of the many jurisdictions, but the government found it riding an unruly horse as the expenditure went out of control.”

His concern is that as a result, whenever it is possible to save money on legal aid, the government will now do so. However, Lord Woolf feels that under the Human Rights Act, the defendant has a right to legal representation and to be properly looked after. This, he said, is a serious change he wants to effect, given the chance.”

Lord Woolf also expressed his view that judicial independence does not require, and should not come at the expense of judicial isolation. To illustrate his point, he recounted how during his trip to Japan he discovered that the Japanese judges were “revered and treated with immense respect” by the people, much like their national icons, the sumo wrestlers. However, because of their high social standing, the judges, like the wrestlers, do not interact with the average joes but instead remain in their ivory towers This, in his opinion, is a great pity because being “a people apart”, they could not share their knowledge and experience with others, not even with the local law students.