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