Judges have a vital role in reform, but should they be the final arbiter? David Greene reviews the evidence
Lord Justice Jackson retires this week with some unfinished business. His contribution to civil justice has been immense and NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan described some of this in NLJ last week (see ‘Jackson LJ: a lasting legacy’). I am sure Jackson would have preferred to remain in place to see all his reforms completed but the conscripted retirement age for the judiciary has seen him leave the bench at the height of his career.
On 5 March, he gave a lecture to the Cambridge Law Faculty bearing the retrospective title, ‘Was it all worth it?’. He confirms that there is, to him, much unfinished business, but the question he raises would need examination at length to do it justice. The question asked here is: does Jackson’s retirement mark the end of the policy making judge like Jackson and indeed Woolf and Briggs? In a recent speech given by Sir Ernest Ryder,
