Events | 2009.07.17
Attorney general survives shake-up
• Chief law officer will retain all current powers
• Seat in cabinet remains
Plans to make the role of attorney general independent of government have been ditched by ministers, despite a two-year battle by constitutional reformers. They had wanted the role to be depoliticised, a move aimed at preventing criticism over a number of highly sensitive cases, including the advice given to government over the war in Iraq, and the decision to abandon the inquiry into BAE Systems.
However, the constitutional reform bill, to be published on Monday by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, leaves the powers of the government\'s chief law officer entirely unchanged. The attorney general will retain the right to decide on prosecutions in important cases involving national security, as well as the power to challenge lenient sentences, and will not be required by statute to publish advice. Lady Scotland, the current attorney general, will also retain her seat in the cabinet.
The decision to drop the reforms first raised by Gordon Brown when he became prime minister was taken at a cabinet committee on Wednesday.
The bill will include some last-minute additions on the disqualifications of peers and the end of the hereditary peerage. It will also feature measures on war-making powers, protests in Parliament Square, and the independence of the civil service.
Published in draft form a year ago, the bill has been the subject of intense backroom intrigue, with Lady Scotland, the first female attorney general in almost 600 years, intent on leaving the post largely as it is. Others, including Michael Wills, the constitutional affairs minister, argued that the attorney general had to be made independent. The dispute was unresolved right up until cabinet committee.
The decision will be a bitter blow to those hoping that Brown was going to adopt a more radical position on constitutional reform in the wake of the expenses scandal. Brown\'s constitutional affairs adviser, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, brought in unpaid from the Liberal Democrats, quit his post last year in frustration at the failure of the government to take a more radical stance on the attorney general issue.
Reformers had argued that it was not possible in the modern era for the attorney general to retain the dual role of chief legal adviser to the government and government minister. It was also argued by the justice select committee that the draft bill left the attorney general\'s relations with key posts – including the head of the Serious Fraud Office and the head of HM Customs and Revenue – ill defined. There had been angry criticisms of the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, when he stopped the Serious Fraud Office continuing with the investigation of BAE corruption in relation to Saudi arms contracts. Lord Goldsmith said it was in the public interest to stop the politically embarrassing investigation, arguing he did not believe that a successful case could be mounted.
In its report last year, the justice select committee argued: "There is no justification for giving the attorney general power to halt investigations by the Serious Fraud Office; the powers to halt actions by the directors of the prosecuting authorities should be uniform."
It also argued that the draft bill did not do enough to improve the accountability of the attorney general, partly since reports on directions not to prosecute were unlikely to create greater accountability, given the limits on the information they would contain.
The justice committee suggested that there was scope for enhancing public confidence if the attorney general published all or most of any advice that was referred to in support of a political case put forward by the government.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/[...]-general-constitutional-reform
