The Judiciary

Question 1

E+A 3 features that help to maintain judicial independence in the UK

Answer 1

1. tenure and protected salary e
   operate without fear of being sacked or pay being docked for holding those in power to account
   extremely rare for a senior judge to be sacked for any reason, and unheard of for overtly political reasons.
   salaries are independently determined and administered away from direct control by the Treasury.
2. growing separation of powers in the UK system and the
   long-standing principle of sub judice affords judges ‘space’ in which to operate.
   The diminishing of the role of Lord Chancellor, and the creation of a UK Supreme Court independent of the legislature has all enhanced independence
   even though parliament remains sovereign and the absence of a codified constitution means that the government of the day could threaten judicial reform, as they did in the wake
   of Supreme Court rulings over Brexit in 2019
   Sub judice rules mean that politicians and the media
   should not comment publicly on ongoing legal proceedings.
3. Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC),
   Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The JAC was created as a means of lending greater transparency and legitimacy to the process by which most senior judges are appointed, and
   thereby removing any suggestion of political interference in top judicial appointments.
   having invariably served a long apprenticeship, most senior judges view maintaining their independence as
   an essential element of defending their professional integrity

Question 2

E+A 3 ways in which the UK judiciary can exercise influence over government

Answer 2

1. ultra vires
   acting beyond ones power
   judges can use that power to rule a minister’s actions unlawful parliament can legislate retrospectively to ‘right’ the ‘wrong’ and reassert the governments’ original position
2. UK Supreme Court has used things such as the
   ECHR (as incorporated into UK law under the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998) to rule against government action, e.g. the Tigere Case. 2015 that challenged the government’s policy on eligibility for student loans for higher education, and resulted in a ruling that the policy was discriminatory and violated students’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights
   rulings against the government under EU law in the past, e.g. Factortame
   completion of Brexit removed the UK’s legal obligation to follow EU law. You could also refer to government suggestion that they might limit the scope of the HRA or withdraw from the ECHR — or the fact that a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ does not force change or compliance on the part of government
3. growing status of judicial institutions such as the Supreme Court has had an indirect influence on government, i.e. the knowledge that judges are increasingly active and possessed of the power to block or impose limitations upon government policy that is flawed or poorly framed means that government moderates its approach and removes elements of policy
   it knows might end with an embarrassing ‘slap-down’ at the hands of senior judges although still the least status of all three branches

Question 3

E+A 3 criticisms of the composition of the judiciary

Answer 3

1. judiciary does not ‘look like’ the UK in terms of age
   profile, gender or ethnicity.
   use statistics to demonstrate
   that the vast majority of senior judges are over 50, white and male
   senior judges are recruited from a pool that is also unrepresentative of the wider population
   question the inference that ‘old white men’ cannot fairly administer justice to all
2. judiciary is elitist in terms of educational
   backgrounds and the social class of senior judges.
3. politicisation.