PM’S new Attorney General wants to ‘take back control from courts encroaching into politics’
A BARRISTER who said the courts should stay out of politics has been appointed as the Government’s most senior lawyer amid Boris Johnson’s growing battle with the judiciary.
Suella Braverman has joined the Cabinet as Attorney General after Geoffrey Cox was axed from the role.
The 39-year-old studied law at Cambridge University, the Sorbonne and New York City, according to her website.
During her 10 years as a barrister she represented the Government on the Attorney General’s Treasury Panel and also defended the Home Secretary in immigration cases, the Parole Board in challenges from prisoners and the Ministry of Defence in the Guantanamo Bay Inquiry.
In a comment piece on the Conservative Home website last month, Ms Braverman said Parliament must “take back control” from the judiciary.
She wrote: “Prorogation and the triggering of Article 50 were merely the latest examples of a chronic and steady encroachment by the judges.
“For in reality, repatriated powers from the EU will mean precious little if our courts continue to act as political decision-maker, pronouncing on what the law ought to be and supplanting Parliament.
“Traditionally, Parliament made the law and judges applied it. But today, our courts exercise a form of political power.”
She also said that while the Human Rights Act was “noble in its intentions”, “the concept of ‘fundamental’ human rights has been stretched beyond recognition”.
She said she was not “lambasting the judiciary” or launching a “diatribe against human rights” but arguing that the “delicate relationship between law and politics is off-balance,” adding: “I don’t challenge the quality of our judges, but I do question their trespass into inherently political terrain for which a legal answer is wholly insufficient.”
Caroline Goodwin, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said the organisation looked forward to working with Ms Braverman, adding: “A government that stands up for the rule of law acts in the best interests of the people - Parliament included.”
But Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Daisy Cooper described the appointment as an “assault on the rule of law” and accused Ms Braverman of being “intent on weakening our courts”.
She said: “Suella Braverman clearly believes that Tory ministers should be above the law. That makes her unfit to serve as Attorney General.”
The Tories pledged at the general election to examine the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts, and vowed to set up a Constitution, Democracy & Rights Commission within a year to come up with proposals to restore trust in democracy.