AFTER THE PARTY

David Wolfson, a justice minister in the UK, has resigned in the wake of the Downing Street ‘partygate’ scandal. It’s a matter, he says, of the rule of law

Something extraordinary happened in the past week: a respected, successful political figure resigned from his top position, out of principle. Of course, this isn’t a local story — when last did such a thing happen in SA? Rather, the resignation involved a UK advocate, David Wolfson, known since his 2021 appointment to the House of Lords as Lord Wolfson of Tredegar.

In late 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Wolfson as a minister in the ministry of justice, where he has been active in a number of important legislative projects.

But this week, he resigned in response to developments in “partygate ”— the scandal around social gatherings at Downing Street during the height of national Covid restrictions in the UK. His resignation letter — sent to Johnson when news broke that he and others now face police fines — links partygate, and Wolfson’s decision to quit government, to the rule of law.

The rule of law, Wolfson wrote to Johnson, means “everyone in a state, and indeed the state itself, is subject to the law”.

Thanks to “recent disclosures”, he continued, an inescapable conclusion has to be reached: there “was repeated rule-breaking and breaches of the criminal law, in Downing Street”. It’s not just a question of what had happened in Downing Street, “or your own conduct”, Wolfson seemingly admonished. “It is also, and perhaps more so, the official response to what took place”.

This has to be Wolfson-speak for the lies Johnson has told about the Downing Street parties and whether they breached Covid regulations.

Naming some of the projects he has worked on since his appointment to the justice ministry, Wolfson said the UK government “can only undertake these and other legal reforms at home — and also credibly defend democratic norms abroad” if it is, and is seen to be, “resolutely committed both to the observance of the law and also to the rule of law”.

While he regrets that his “current” ministerial career has come to a premature end, his ministerial and professional obligations to “support and uphold the rule of law” had left him with no option but to resign.

‘Defending democratic norms’

Wolfson, whose title survives his resignation as a minister, has for the duration of his appointment been a nonpractising member of advocates’ chambers One Essex Court. His chambers have maintained a page with his CV and profile, describing him as one of the “most sought-after commercial Silks at the Bar” who “attracts instructions in the most complex and highvalue disputes”.

Perhaps his most incredible professional achievement has been to persuade the appeal court that an argument he made in the high court, and which won the case there, ought to be rejected on appeal. The appeal court judgment on that matter begins with the headline “In Praise of Forensic Schizophrenia”.

A taste of the argument in the appeal emerges from a 2021 piece in The Times about Wolfson. In it, he is quoted as saying the case was a high point of his career. “The Court of Appeal said: ‘Do you accept that you were wrong?’ I said: ‘No, my lords, but I might be prepared to accept that the learned judge was wrong to agree with me.’”

Given how rarely politicians quit office on a matter of principle, his decision to resign as a minister must surely equal that “schizophrenic” professional achievement as a most notable moment in his career.

But there’s a last angle on his resignation letter that, while topical, might not be immediately obvious. It’s the reference he makes to defending democratic norms abroad, to which he adds, “especially at a time of war in Europe”.

According to The Times, when appointed to the House of Lords, he chose the title Wolfson of Tredegar as a tribute to his great-grandparents. They lived in the Welsh town of that name, after fleeing poverty and pogroms in what is now Ukraine.