Establishing rights
Your correspondent Martin Sewell suggests that the decision to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor is part of a process to eliminate English common law in favour of European jurisprudence (see [2003] Gazette, 26 June, 16).
I suggest it is simply part of a process to ensure the 'establishment' is in accordance with human rights legislation.
Like Mr Sewell I was a student in the 1960s and two points have long concerned me.
First, can it be right that the most senior government minister (apart from the Prime Minister) is unelected - and not liable to cross-examination by elected members in the House of Commons?
Secondly, can it be right that such a senior government minister sits as a judge on prosecutions brought by the government? (In effect, all prosecutions are brought by a government agency).
Imagine the fuss the British tabloid press would make if a British citizen were prosecuted for a criminal offence in a foreign country by a ministry whose minister also sat in the highest court of appeal of that country.
Russell Graham, Zermansky & Partners, Leeds
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