page_title: Lord Chancellor
section_title: Reform
hierarchical_section_title: Lord Chancellor / Reform
caption_attribution_description: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw meets with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in the Pentagon. A number of bilateral security issues were discussed. Straw and United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States Sir David Manning represented Britain.
context_page_description: The Lord Chancellor, formally the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest ranking among the Great Officers of State who are appointed regularly in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the Prime Minister. The Lord Chancellor is outranked only by the Lord High Steward, another Great Officer of State, who is appointed only for the day of coronations. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. Prior to their Union into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland; there were Lord Chancellors of Ireland until 1922.
  The Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and, by law, is responsible for the efficient functioning and independence of the courts. In 2005, there were a number of changes to the legal system and to the office of the Lord Chancellor.
context_section_description: In the early 21st century, the New Labour government viewed it as untenable that all three political functions (executive, legislative and judicial) should be continued in the historical office of Lord Chancellor.  In the Government's view, this infringed Montesquieu's principle of separation of powers which declared that no person should have access to all of the three political functions.  The Lord Chancellor could exercise all three powers, and some, such as Quintin, Lord Hailsham, often did so. The Labour Government also took the view that these powers were inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. In a challenge, the Strasbourg Court held that having a politician sitting in judgment in a court was a breach of any litigant's right to a fair trial.
  However, proposals by the Blair Government simply to abolish the office met with opposition from those who felt that such an official was necessary to speak on the judiciary's behalf in Cabinet, as well as from many who opposed the sudden abolition of such an ancient office. In 2003, Tony Blair chose his close friend and former flatmate Lord Falconer to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. At the same time, he announced his intention to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor and to make many other constitutional reforms. After much surprise and confusion, it became clear that the ancient office of Lord Chancellor could not be abolished without an Act of Parliament. Thus Lord Falconer duly appeared the following day in the House of Lords to carry out his duties from the Woolsack. The Lord Chancellor's Department was, however, renamed the Department for Constitutional Affairs.
  In January 2004, the Department of Constitutional Affairs published a concordat, outlining the division of authority between Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice and which was intended as the basis of reform. The Government introduced the Constitutional Reform Bill in the House of Lords in February 2004. The Bill sought to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, and to transfer its functions to other officials: legislative functions to a Speaker of the House of Lords, executive functions to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and judicial functions to the Lord Chief Justice. The Bill also made other constitutional reforms, such as transferring the judicial duties of the House of Lords to a Supreme Court. However, unlike the responsibilities of other Secretaries of State, which can be transferred from one department to another by an order-in-council, several functions of the Lord Chancellor are linked to the office of Lord Chancellor as a matter of statute law. Those "protected functions" of the Lord Chancellor can only be transferred to other ministers by Act of Parliament. As a consequence, it became clear that it was extremely difficult to simply "abolish" the office of Lord Chancellor.
  In March 2004, however, the Lords upset the Government's plans by sending the Bill to a Select committee. Although initially seen as a move to kill the Bill, the Government and HM Opposition agreed to permit the Bill to proceed through the parliamentary process, subject to any amendments made by the Committee. On 13 July 2004, the House amended the Constitutional Reform Bill such that the title of Lord Chancellor would be retained, although the Government's other proposed reforms were left intact. Then, in November 2004, the Government introduced an amendment in the Lords which wholly removed references to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, changing them to ones about the Lord Chancellor, with the positions of Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor envisaged as being held by the same person.  The final Constitutional Reform Act received Royal Assent on 24 March 2005 and the major transfers of the historical functions of the Lord Chancellor to others (such as the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Speaker) were complete by mid-2006. However the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs remained a member of the Prime Minister
caption: Jack Straw was the first commoner to be appointed as Lord Chancellor since 1578.
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