Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

JUDGES

1000 years ago, when there was a Conservative Government and I was a young minister in the Lord Chancellors department with 15 minutes of death or glory at the despatch box every four weeks, Dennis Skinner rose and posed a very simple question.
“Why shouldn’t judges be elected?”

He sat down as I rose, huge file in trembling hands, to reply. The House was nearly full, members ambling in noisily for Prime Minister’s Question Time. My mind went a complete blank. I had never considered the matter, had never been briefed on the matter, it had never been discussed in the department, there was not a single note in the file about it. I looked across to the box in which civil servants sat peering into the eyes of my senior advisor, a despairing look on my face. I can remember it now: he shrugged. I turned to face the House. They could see the fear in my eyes and a hush descended. They scented a minister in free fall, the very thing the Commons likes best. I waffled, I stuttered and squeezed out a few meaningless words, sitting down to unimpressed silence on my side and jeers from those opposite. The curse of Skinner had struck again.

But his question deserves to be explored. One of the hot issues today is whether judges are out of touch with public opinion on the sentences they hand down. In relation to child sex offenders, I think they are. There have been too many recent examples of soft sentences.

What’s the solution? Politicians can pontificate, the media can take off in one of its periodic collective rants, but the independence of the judiciary is something we rightly treasure. Better guidance, tougher sentencing laws would help, but in the end a judge in his courtroom is fiercely independent, and rightly so.
So perhaps judges should stand in the court of public approval before they don their wigs and robes. What if every five years or so they had to face a vote of confidence, a vote based on their sentencing record? The Americans elect many of their judges. It would be a radical departure for us, but no more so than a partially elected House of Lords, which seems to be what we are rumbling towards.
So in this brave new world in which we live, perhaps it is time to consider this. Do you want to elect your judges?

posted by Nigel on Tuesday, June 27, 2006