Editorial: Judges give huge service to society and should never be exposed to intimidation - but bad rulings must be subject to criticism

​The lady chief justice of England and Wales is “deeply troubled” by criticisms of judges.

Baroness Carr was referring to Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch slamming a judge who granted a Palestinian family the right to remain in Britain after they applied through a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.

Baroness Carr is right to flag up the safety of judges, which is essential, but judges are not overly criticised in the UK – certainly not in Northern Ireland. There is not space in this article to cite very bad rulings such as the Supreme Court verdict that has put Gerry Adams on a path to damages. Suffice to say distinguished politicians and lawyers, including the former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption, have expressed their contempt for that judgement (which which was unanimous).

But there have been other alarming cases, including the widely criticised coroner finding that the SAS should have arrested the IRA killers at Clonoe in 1992. In fact, the extent to which the courts in NI have driven policy or almost driven policy – evidenced by the number of times the government, including the current Labour one, have had to appeal judgements that impact on everything from legacy to the Irish Sea border – illustrates the scale of the problem.

Defenders of judges might say, with justification, that politicians are ultimately to blame for this – for example, they could leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Setting aside the howls of outrage, including in the legal world, that would follow such a course, there have been quite absurd rulings that deserved political and media criticism even if overturned on appeal.

Judges are often people of outstanding character who do huge service to the country. And even those who are not must never be exposed to despicable intimidation. But there has been too much of a culture of deference to judicial rulings.