Chalk and Cheese
Appointing Alex Chalk KC as the new Secretary of State for Justice ought to be an improvement on Dominic Raab in the sense that appointing any random person off the street would have been an improvement.
The new minister is, in all likelihood, not a domineering bully who undermines the hard work of civil servants and will likely show some interest in justice rather than pure self-promotion.
Indeed Chalk has previously been a strong advocate for access to justice and was often to be found giving talks about legal aid at the annual Conservative party conference. In that vein, he also wrote an article for ConservativeHome in 2018 suggesting that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 had gone too far and that an evidence-based approach should be taken to reforming legal aid:
“There is now a serious concern that, without some steps to restore a measure of access to justice, serious injustice will inevitably follow. It would be unacceptable if deserving individuals, with right on their side, found themselves the victim of rough justice (even perhaps street justice) because they were unable to get legal advice or settle their case in court. It goes against the kind of country we are.”
Whether that more progressive point of view will change when the rubber hits the road, we will have to wait and see. It is notable that he did vote against legal aid for bereaved people at inquests only last year. Nevertheless this is a much more positive sign for the Ministry of Justice than we have been used to in recent times when the department has struggled for funding and ministers have instead pursued fantastical legislative projects.
As I wrote about last week, the challenges are multitude and there are reasonable limits on what we can expect from Chalk. The funding issue is not going away anytime soon and backlogs in the courts arise from years of neglect so won’t disappear overnight either.
Despite all that, there are some easy wins that Chalk should be able to……chalk up with relative ease. The Bill of Rights Bill (Dominic Raab’s pet legislation) has been roundly criticised and should be scrapped or conveniently ignored by Raab’s successor. Raab also had a very poor relationship with professional legal bodies like the Law Society and the Bar Council. Again, there is a lot to be gained by simply reaching out and promising to work with these organisations on areas of concern.
For many the main hope will simply be consistency. Alex Chalk will be the 10th Justice Secretary in ten years and the impermanence has relegated the Ministry of Justice down the departmental hierarchy. Raab was more focused on being the deputy prime minister instead of Secretary of State for Justice while others have struggled to get to grips with a portfolio that is admittedly a bit of a mish-mash of different things.
Whether Chalk is the right man for the job or not remains to be seen but, for the simple sake of consistency, we should hope that he is still the Secretary of State for Justice at the time of the next general election.
This week’s episode of the podcast also features the Ministry of Justice in a case before the Supreme Court. Several prisoners in Northern Ireland had the custodial period of their sentence extended while they were in prison because of legislative changes. They challenged that move by the department on human rights grounds.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2023-uksc-14/
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Marcus