Report comment

Leaving aside the ad hominem arguments, this debate resurrects the old argument over whether a non-lawyer can properly be Lord Chancellor and/or justice secretary. There is an argument for the two roles to be separated - perhaps the LC to advocate for lawyers and the rule of law, and the JS to hold the purse strings. The dual roles are too recent for any sort of convention to have developed as to how (if at all) the roles are to be shared.

My own view is that they should be split roles: the LC should be a lawyer, and should be in the cabinet. The constitution rests on several pillars, one of which is the concept of the rule of law. It is appropriate - essential even - that the concept of the rule of law should have a senior and doughty defender, i.e. a lawyer. However, it is not inimical to this concept that a separate office should oversee the nuts and bolts of the implementation of the rule of law, meaning principally financing the legal system and how taxpayers money is to be allocated. There may be clashes, and these can be resolved in time honoured ways (declarations by the curt they are legal or not). In true British fashion, we perhaps don't need to be explicit about which tail wags which dog... there will be give and take.