Political attacks on judges are “dangerous” and “a huge threat to the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary”, the attorney general has said in a direct rebuke to the shadow justice secretary.
Richard Hermer said politics was entering a “dangerous moment” where politicians were “attacking judges on a personal basis” on the floor of the House of Commons.
He made the intervention after Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, criticised a senior judge in the Commons on Tuesday. Jenrick called for Lord Justice Davis, the head of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, to be sacked amid a row over new sentencing guidelines.
Speaking to parliament’s joint committee on human rights, Hermer said that “we are entering a dangerous moment in which not simply on social media but indeed on the floor of the House of Commons, people are attacking judges on a personal basis.
“That is entirely unacceptable and creates a huge threat to the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.”
Hermer told the committee that “we are at a juncture in history” where the rule of law faced “a whole range of challenges” in the UK and overseas.
There have been tensions between ministers and some senior judges in recent months. In response to Hermer’s comments, Jenrick claimed that Hermer had “turned on his friend, the prime minister, for voicing perfectly legitimate criticisms about activist judges”. In February, Keir Starmer expressed disagreement with a judge’s ruling in an immigration case concerning a Palestinian family who had applied to live in the UK through a scheme designed for Ukrainians.
Responding to Kemi Badenoch, who said this ruling was “completely wrong”, Starmer said he agreed and that “it should be parliament that makes the rules on immigration”.
This triggered an intervention from the lady chief justice, Lady Sue Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales, who said that she was “deeply troubled” by Starmer and Badenoch’s “unacceptable” remarks about the case.
Separately this week, ministers announced legislation to overturn guidance from the Sentencing Council intended to tackle bias during sentencing. The guidelines would have required magistrates and judges to consult a pre-sentence report before deciding whether to imprison someone of an ethnic or religious minority, or a young adult, abuse survivor or pregnant woman.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, had strongly criticised the proposals and said there would “never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch”.
In the Commons on Wednesday, Jenrick called for Davis to be sacked after he defended the guidelines.
During the debate, another Conservative MP, John Hayes, said that all members of the Sentencing Council should resign, and a third Tory MP, Desmond Swayne, said that Carr should be “rebuked” for her “impertinence”.
Hermer himself has faced criticism from some inside government, who have accused him of slowing down progress and taking an overly legalistic approach.
At the committee on Wednesday the attorney general defended changes he made to the way government lawyers provide advice to ministers, which are said to have caused tensions. He insisted that the revised guidance amounted to a “change in tone” that would not delay government policy.
“I had a very real concern on entering government as attorney that a practice had developed in which lawyers were being asked to advise ministers as to whether there was a respectable legal argument to support the policy,” he said. “But respectable legal argument means something is highly likely to be unlawful but not so bad you’d be struck off.”
Hermer said the result was that “ministers were thinking it was respectable without realising it was highly likely to be unlawful”, and that the changes were intended to give ministers an “unvarnished assessment” of the legal risks of their policies.
