Straw hints at plans for a new Ministry of Justice

Home secretary Jack Straw hinted atgovernment plans to introduce a continental-style Ministry of Justice last week, during a House of Commons committee session in...Home secretary Jack Straw hinted atgovernment plans to introduce a continental-style Ministry of Justice last week, during a House of Commons committee session in which he praised lawyers for their attitude to the Human Rights Act.Answering the joint human rights committees questions he referred to a ministry of justice and a department of justice.

Currently, the Lord Chancellors Department has control over civil law and the judiciary, while the Home office has control over criminal law.Although the government denies that it is considering the creation of such a ministry which would inevitably threaten the constitutional role of the Lord Chancellor newspaper reports this week stated that the Number 10 policy unit was drawing up blueprints.During the questions session Mr Straw praised lawyers for their treatment of the Human Rights Act.

Asked whether there was any evidence that lawyers were exploiting the Act, Mr Straw said that although there were signs of entrepreneurship which was just a truth about lawyers the evidence suggested that lawyers were taking a robust and common sense view of the Act.However, he added: I expressed concerns about lawyers about two weeksago, and I stick by those concerns.

They relate to the development of criminal lawyers in the last 10 to15 years.

Mr Straw also attacked the press for its treatment of the Human Rights Act.

He told the committee that the press had failed to report on the introduction of the Act sensibly, and he lambasted the retreat of the serious press away from serious issues to the tittle-tattle of politics. Jeremy Fleming