Politicians ‘too slow’ to back courts over Brexit, says top judge

THE country’s most senior judge criticised politicians yesterday for being too slow to stand up for the judiciary in the row after the Brexit court challenge.

Lord Neuberger said ministers should have been ‘quicker and clearer’ to defend three senior judges who ruled in November that Parliament must have a vote on triggering Britain’s exit from the EU.

He added the judiciary was ‘ not well treated’ after the High Court decided that Theresa May could not invoke Article 50, starting the process of leaving the EU, without the consent of MPs and peers.

It led to a backlash from Leave campaigners, including pro-Brexit MPs, newspapers and social media, who accused the judges of ‘defying the referendum result’.

Lord Chancellor Liz Truss was criticised for staying silent for several days before speaking up for the independence of the judiciary.

Last month the Supreme Court rejected the Government’s appeal against the ruling.

Asked whether politicians responded rap- idly enough after the controversial judgment, Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court, said: ‘They were certainly vocal enough quickly enough after our hearing.

‘After the [High] Court hearing, I think they could have been quicker and clearer. But we all learn by experience, whether politicians or judges…

‘They were faced with an unexpected situation from which, like all sensible people, they learned.’

He said on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday that some of the criticism directed at the High Court judges undermined the rule of law.

He did not single out any newspapers, but is presumed to have been referring to headlines such ‘The judges versus the people’ in The Daily Telegraph and ‘Enemies of the people’ in the Daily Mail.

He said: ‘We were certainly not well treated. One has to be careful about being critical of the Press, particularly as a lawyer or judge, because our view of life is very different from that of the media. Certainly in our terms they were quite off beam in terms of what they were concentrating on.

‘I wouldn’t criticise them, save to the extent that undermining the judiciary for no good reason is no good for the rule of law. I think some of what was said was undermining the rule of law.’

Defending the media’s role, Lord Neuberger said he accepted that ‘most of what was said, even if I didn’t agree with it or think it was fair, was well within the ambit of what a reasonable press could do’. He added the media had a positive duty ‘to keep an eye on things’.

Lord Neuberger, who is due to retire later this year, was one of the Supreme Court judges who rejected the Government’s appeal in an eight-three majority ruling.

That led former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith to say judges had gone too far in ‘deciding to tell Parliament how to run its business’.

Miss Truss, who is also the Justice Secretary, said last night: ‘I am delighted that Lord Neuberger is proactively talking about the role of the judiciary in public.’ Comment – Page 14 Littlejohn – Page 17