Essay on To what extent are UK judges both independent and neutral?

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Unit 2 Stimulus – The Judiciary
1a) With reference to the source, describe the measures that exist to maintain the independence and neutrality of the judiciary.
The independence of the judiciary from the executive and legislative is said to kept by things like their fixed salaries and sub judice rule. Their salaries ‘are paid from the Consolidated Fund’ and aren’t fixed or changeable by Parliament or the government which keeps the judiciary free from political pressure in terms of finance. The sub judice rule is where the MPs in the House of Commons are unable to comment on current or pending cases. This keeps the judiciary free from political interference and prevents prejudice against judicial decisions. This rule is followed by …show more content…
Therefore UK judges are independent and have become neutral to a large extent but there are still some limitations on this.
First of all the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 has greatly increased the independence of judges as it resulted in the removal of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords by replacing him with a Speaker since 2006. His power to appoint judges with the Prime Minister was also transferred to an independent Judicial Appointments Commission. The act also reformed the office of the Lord Chancellor by passing on his judicial functions to the Lord Chief Justice – a judge with no link to the legislature and executive, who is now responsible for the training, guidance and deployment on judges. Finally the Act created a new Supreme Court in 2009 which shifted the Law Lords from the House of Lords to a building separate from the legislature. This shows that the judiciary has become independent from both the legislature and the executive as the Lord Chancellor no longer sits in the House of Lords, the senior judges no longer sit in the legislature and political patronage of the judiciary no longer exists due to an Appointments commission, thus increasing greatly the independence of judges.
Secondly the
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