By Rupert White


The chairman of the influential constitutional affairs select committee has slammed the government over the Ministry of Justice this week, following the committee's damning report on the department's creation.



'What is at stake is something that is fundamental to our constitution,' Alan Beith MP told the Gazette, speaking about the continuing division between the judiciary and the MoJ over judicial independence. 'If something isn't done, it does call into question the Concordat,' he added, referring to the 2004 agreement between the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, and Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, about their roles, which was made statutory in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.



Mr Beith said that in setting up the MoJ, the government created a situation in which senior judges now seriously fear for the independence of the judiciary.



'Senior judges are particularly alert to that danger. Frankly, they think it's a threat,' he said, 'and it's against the background that many ministers are pretty cavalier in their willingness to undermine the judiciary with intemperate attacks on individual cases.'



Last week, the committee, now called the justice committee, published its report into the creation of the MoJ, in which MPs attacked the new department as a fait accompli and Lord Falconer as having exacerbated the conflict 'by an underestimation of, and insensitivity for, the concerns of the judiciary which changes to the role and responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor may raise'.



The report added that the government failed to learn lessons from the way changes to the Lord Chancellor's office were announced and then effected between 2003 and 2005.



The MPs also criticised the government for not consulting on the ministry's creation, and rejected Whitehall's view that it represents merely a 'machinery of government' change. 'Such changes go far beyond a mere technical change,' the report said.



An MoJ spokesman was unable to say when or even if new Lord Chancellor Jack Straw will meet with the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, to thrash out a solution. The subject is 'on the agenda' and will be raised at regular meetings, he insisted.



According to a Freedom of Information Act application published on the MoJ's website, the ministry has cost £1.59 million to set up.



A full interview with Mr Beith will appear in a later issue.