A year into post the Lord Chief Justice has drawn his battle lines, says David Corker
This month marks the first anniversary of the appointment of Lord Thomas as the Lord Chief Justice. In this role, Lord Thomas is entitled to communicate to the Ministry of Justice his, and the judiciary’s, concerns and opinions about our criminal justice system. A year in, it has become evident that Lord Thomas is deeply troubled about the future of the system over which he presides. He perceives a fundamental change occurring which he has termed “the retrenchment of the state”.
In a speech to the legal think-tank Justice last March, he laid bare his view that the severity of cutbacks in government expenditure concerned with civil, family and criminal justice was a threat to their existence and thus to the rule of law. He contended that in the absence of a competent state, the rule of law would wither and be supplanted by the law of the jungle. While in his speeches Lord Thomas has sought to awaken the public to the danger to justice posed by the government’s
