EU links of judges who will rule on Brexit appeal
AFTER last week’s High Court ruling ordering the Prime Minister to consult MPs over the triggering of Brexit, the Government is to appeal to the Supreme Court next month.
The Brussels links of the judges in last week’s hearing were widely criticised, but they were as nothing against the European connections of some members of the panel lined up to hear the appeal.
Unlike in the US, appointments to the Supreme Court in this country are shrouded in secrecy. When a vacancy arises, the Lord Chancellor chooses a selection committee to look at candidates. It consults senior judges and politicians with the only criteria that they are chosen ‘on merit’.
The appointment is then made by the Queen on the Prime Minister’s recommendation – with no public scrutiny required.
Here we look at four of the Europhile law lords set to hear the Brexit case.
LORD REED
THE 60-year- old is one of two Supreme Court judges who has served on the European Court of Human Rights. Lord Reed was on a panel which decided in 1999 that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who killed toddler James Bulger, had not received a fair trial. And it ruled Michael Howard, the home secretary at the time of the 1993 trial, breached human rights laws by intervening to raise the killers’ sentences.
Lord Reed was also vice-president of the EU Forum of Judges for the Environment between 2006 and 2008. A Brussels man to his fingertips, he was an adviser to the EU Initiative with Turkey on Democratisation and Human Rights between 2002 and 2004.
He was an obvious choice to deliver the annual Sir Thomas More lecture (More was beheaded by Henry VIII) on EU law and the Supreme Court in 2014. He said: ‘For anyone invited to express his views on Britain’s relations with Europe, Sir Thomas does not provide an encouraging precedent.
‘While I do not expect this lecture to be followed by my head’s being impaled and displayed on London Bridge, I nevertheless subscribe to the view that it is wise for judges to avoid speaking in public on controversial topics.’
LORD KERR
A FORMER Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Lord Kerr, 68, has also sat in the European Court of Human Rights.
Last year he went against then-home secretary Theresa May over her decision not to admit an Iranian woman with a terrorist conviction to Britain. In the case, Lord Kerr held the court had the power not only to review whether the home secretary’s argument was ‘tenable’ according to the rules, but if it was ‘right’.
He is an unashamed champion of the Human Rights Act brought in by the Blair government. He said in an interview: ‘The central point about the Act is that it has given judges free access to the rich vein of jurisprudence that is provided by the Strasbourg Court. I am in favour of the view that Strasbourg should not necessarily provide the last word on the content of human rights in our jurisdiction.
LORD MANCE
FLUENT in several languages, Lord Mance’s career has been saturated in the processes of European law. The 73-year-old worked for a Hamburg law firm shortly after leaving Oxford, and has gone on to represent the UK on the Consultative Council of European Judges, set up to advise the Council of Europe on the ‘independence, impartiality and competence’ of judges.
He is also a member of a panel set up under an EU treaty to give an opinion on candidates’ suitability for the European Court of Justice. In 2012 Oxford University chancellor Lord Patten, who yesterday urged Downing Street to order newspapers to desist from publishing criticism of the judges, made Lord Mance high steward of the university.
His wife Dame Mary Arden is also a judge. This year he upheld an injunction preventing the naming of a married celebrity who asked another couple if they were willing to have a threesome in a children’s paddling pool filled with olive oil. The judgment provoked derision as the celebrity’s identity was published around the world – and all over the internet.
When MPs said the ruling made the law look an ass, an unrepentant Lord Mance retorted: ‘If that is the price of applying the law it is one which must be paid.’
LORD CARNWATH
A KEY legal adviser to Prince Charles between 1988 and 1994, Lord Carnwath, 71, is steeped in EU laws and tradition. The Old Etonian was a co-founder of the EU Forum of Judges for the Environment. The body exists to ‘promote the enforcement of national, European and international environmental law’.
Last year he chaired a Supreme Court climate-change conference and he has been president of the UK Environmental Law Association since 2006. Lord Carnwath is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Environmental Law.