Preface
A number of different threads produced this essay, my first attempt at a long form piece. The question why many senior barristers no longer wanted to pursue the conventional path of a judicial appointment had a particular resonance at the time, as this was my own choice. I thought it needed justification. As the article implies, I spent many lunches on high table in the Inner Temple, listening to the complaints of serving judges about the quality of their working lives. I started thinking about why it was that the experience of this traditionally attractive office had become so tarnished. This led me to pursue a parallel interest, namely the wide-ranging constitutional reforms effected by the Blair government. In 2005. They had been unsuccessfully opposed from within by Derry Irvine, who in due course helped with the present essay behind the scenes. Roger Scruton also had an interest in these reforms – part of his romantic attachment to the English legal system – and encouraged me to keep writing. (He even, against my better judgement, persuaded me to join him in presenting the article to Liz Truss, the then Lord Chancellor, which led to a humiliating meeting with her and her civil servants. Unsurprisingly, this non-legal Lord Chancellor did not take kindly to being told that the job should be confined to lawyers.) It seemed to me that these two areas of study were linked. And then, as a final element, there was the furore in some quarters over the Courts’ decision, in the wake of the Brexit referendum the same year, to accede to Gina Miller‘s argument that Parliament alone, not the Government, could serve a valid notice to quit the European Union under article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.