Lord Faulkes quits over appointment of Liz Truss as Lord Chancellor, blasting her inexperience and warning she won’t be able to stand up for judges in Cabinet

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Mike Buchanan

Our thanks to Paul for this. Liz Truss was first elected to parliament just six years ago. In an article in The Times today, Charles Falconer (Lord Chancellor, 2003-7) wrote:

Liz Truss… has displayed no obvious signs of independence as a minister, backing Mrs May right from the off in the leadership election and so far shows every sign in her career of being more interested in promotion than the rule of law.

There is nothing wrong with ambition – but the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 said that the prime minister could only appoint someone who appears to be qualified by experience. The lord chancellor is the only job in cabinet where there are personal conditions, laid down by statute, which have to be satisfied by the holder.

There is no one who could possibly suggest that Ms Truss met the bar set by that law…

So the prime minister broke the law in appointing Ms Truss, but more importantly showed she did not regard protecting the rule of law as a priority at all in making her cabinet. There is, I’m sure, much that is good about the new prime minister. Her cavalier disregard for the law is not one of them.

 

About Mike Buchanan

I'm a men's human rights advocate, writer, and publisher. My primary focus is leading the political party I launched in 2013, Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them). I still work actively on two campaigns I launched in early 2012, Campaign for Merit in Business and the Anti-Feminism League. In 2014 I launched The Alternative Sexism Project, aiming to raise public understanding that the sexism faced by men and boys has far more grievous consequences than the sexism faced by women and girls.
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  • Historically, if a political party does not have a suitable candidate for Lord Chancellor, then a senior judge is appointed to the post.
    Truss is a beneficiary of positive discrimination and no farmer or fisherman has a good word for her. She is the product of an all woman shortlist and when the constituency party tried to de-select her for loose living they were not allowed to do so and were dubbed the Turnip Taliban for their pains. In South Norfolk, standards are maintained and traditional values are strong, and a man caught in flagrant adultery would have been dropped into oblivion.
    She failed in a junior Ministerial role. She failed at DEFRA and the Environment.
    And now she is polluting one of the great offices of State. Wolsey, More, Hardwicke, and Birkenhead must be turning in their graves. Accept that the Chancellorship is going to be filled, probably, by the Attorney General, or else appoint a judge, and split it off the Ministry of Justice; the historic function of the Lord Chancellor is to preside over the highest Court in the land.
    And call it the House of Lords again.