Why unelected judges get the vote of Peter Thompson QC
In his Cambridge Freshfield Lecture, Lord Neuberger gave a number of reasons, historical, geographical and emotional, for the view expressed in the Daily Mail and other newspapers that “it is unacceptable for unelected judges to impose a diktat on a democratically elected parliament”. He said that this was a “peculiarly British View”, aimed particularly at the rulings on EU law by judges in Luxembourg and on human rights by judges in Strasbourg.
But I am not going to write about that. No, what troubles me about Lord Neuberger’s citation from the Daily Mail is the complaint about rulings (diktats) being made by “unelected judges”.
Election v appointment
It is true that the judges in the European courts are not elected. But UK judges are not elected either: they are appointed, mostly by Her Majesty the Queen, and our concept of the rule of law is of a judgment-seat before which the government and our legislators may be brought to account for
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