Obiter has seen plenty of miserable-looking people on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, but few who looked quite as glum as our new lord chancellor Alex Norris MP yesterday. The one-time trade union organiser arrived at the RCJ in the traditional procession led by the tipstaff and the Mace of Office. While Norris sported the full robes-and-tights rig, he emulated previous non-lawyer incumbents in eschewing the wig.

At the judges’ entrance, the new boy was greeted by the robed and wigged lady chief justice and the soon-to-retire master of the rolls. With a nod to the two-month gap between appointment and swearing-in, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill reminded Norris that the ceremony was not just for show. 

‘Taking the oath here, today, once more affirms – publicly – the particular, the fundamental relationship that the lord chancellor has with the judiciary, and the office’s statutory duty to defend judicial independence,’ the lady chief justice said. ‘That duty has many facets to it, but it includes a duty to speak out publicly in defence of that independence whenever necessary.’

Don’t worry, Alex. If recent history is any guide, you won’t be in the job long. 

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