Disenchantment with Mackay
01 January 1991
Disenchantment with Mackay
artdoc June=1994
Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay has come under attack for what some
see as the attempted destruction of the legal system by attacks
on its independence at all levels as well as attacks on the
funding of legal aid. In the House of Lords, Mackay agreed to
reconsider the proposal, embodied in the Police and Magistrates'
Courts Bill, that justices would be supervised by government-
appointed executives. Lord Chief Justice Peter Taylor was at the
centre of trenchant criticisms of the plan because of the
conflict of interest between administrative and legal goals which
it posed for chief clerks, and its potential for undermining
judicial independence. He described the proposal as `dangerous
nonsense'.
At the same time, Lord Mackay was being criticised by Lord
Woolf and by Law Society President Rodger Pannone of destroying
the `once-proud legal aid service'. Pannone said that access to
justice was now available only to the very rich and the very
poor, while Lord Woolf, the law lord who produced the Woolf
report on the prison service, described as `deplorable' the
inability of large numbers of people to protect their rights
through the court. It left people vulnerable to exploitation, he
said.
Mackay has also been accused of direct interference with a
senior judge. According to the Observer, Mr Justice Wood, who was
President of the Employment Appeals Tribunal, was pressured by
Mackay to change his view that appellants were entitled to have
a hearing to ask for leave to appeal against decisions of the
Industrial Tribunal. Mackay's view was that hearings were an
unnecessary luxury and applications could be decided on paper.
When Wood failed to fall in with Mackay's view of the correct
procedure, he was served with an ultimatum telling him to
`consider his position'. Wood resigned shortly afterwards.
Mackay has never been popular among barristers and judges,
largely because he disturbed vested interests by radical
proposals to remove barristers' monopolies in court. But now, all
sides of the legal profession seem united against him. Law Lord
Ackner summarised the universal concerns that: `the Treasury is
becoming predominant in the administration of justice'.
Independent 23, 25.2.94; 1.3.94; Observer 6.3.94.
Statewatch Vol 4 no 2, March-April 1994