Keir Starmer has hit back at Britain’s most senior judge, Baroness Carr, who criticised him for publicly opposing a controversial ruling by an immigration judge that allowed Gazan refugees to come to Britain under a scheme for Ukrainians. The Telegraph has more.
Sir Keir Starmer has become embroiled in a rare public row with Britain’s most senior judge over his criticism of an immigration decision.
Baroness Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, attacked the Prime Minister for his “unacceptable” criticism last week of an immigration judge who allowed Palestinian refugees to come to the UK from Gaza.
At a press conference on Tuesday, she said both Sir Keir and Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, had failed to “respect and protect” judges by publicly criticising the verdict as “wrong”.
She said she was “deeply troubled” by their comments and said she had written to Sir Keir and Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor, to remind them that politicians must respect judicial independence.
But on Tuesday night, the Prime Minister pushed back, repeating his previous comments that it was “for Parliament to make laws and for the Government to decide policy”.
“Where the law is not working as we think it should be, the Government will take action to tighten up the rules – and that is what we are doing,” a Government spokesman said. …
Mrs Badenoch and three former Tory government law officers also responded to Lady Carr, saying her intervention had been “extremely unwise”, “totally misguided” and “ludicrous”.
The Tory leader said: “Parliament is sovereign. Politicians must be able to discuss matters of crucial public importance in Parliament. This doesn’t compromise the independence of the judiciary. The decision to allow a family from Gaza to come to the UK was outrageous for many reasons.”
The case saw the judge allow a family of six seeking to flee Gaza to join their brother in Britain. He ruled that the Home Office’s rejection of their application made through the Ukraine Family Scheme breached their human rights.
It came as part of a series of cases exposed by the Telegraph where illegal migrants or convicted foreign criminals have used human rights laws to remain in the UK or halt their deportations.
Michael Ellis, a former Attorney General, said her intervention was “totally misguided and in my view unacceptable”.
“Frankly, if judges, especially quite junior judges, are going to try to make new law in highly sensitive political areas they should expect robust criticism,” he said.
Baroness Carr added:
It is not acceptable for judges to be the subject of personal attacks for doing no more than their jobs to find the facts on the evidence before them and apply the law as it stands to those facts.
If they get it wrong, the protection is a challenge on appeal. If the legislation is wrong, it is Parliament’s prerogative to legislate. It is really dangerous to make any criticism of a judgment without a full understanding of the facts and the law. The judgment is the only accurate source of information.
A directly related issue is security. Concerns over judicial security are at an all-time high. Unfair or sensational negative reporting creates real everyday risks to the safety and lives of judges and their families.
I am, as you know, fully committed to open justice and transparency in the justice system. I would hate to see the drive for transparency compromised or threatened through inaccurate reporting and unfair public comment.
That sounds suspiciously like a threat. She’s clearly completely clueless about what has gone wrong here. Parliament needs to take some proper action both to reform the asylum system and bring the over-mighty judiciary to heel. Fat chance under Starmer though.
Worth reading in full.
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