The most senior judge in England and Wales said she has written to Sir Keir Starmer over last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, telling reporters she was “deeply troubled”.
During PMQs last week, Sir Keir said a decision allowing a Palestinian family the right to remain in the UK after they applied through a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees was “wrong” and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had got her team “working on closing this loophole”.
The family, who have been granted anonymity, had an appeal against the decision dismissed by a first-tier immigration tribunal judge in September but a further appeal was allowed by upper tribunal judges in January.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch raised the case, describing the tribunal decision as “completely wrong”.
The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, said on Tuesday that she was “deeply troubled to learn of the exchanges” between Sir Keir and Mrs Badenoch.
She told reporters: “I think it started from a question from the Opposition suggesting that the decision in a certain case was wrong, and obviously the Prime Minister’s response to that.
“Both question and the answer were unacceptable.
“It is for the Government visibly to respect and protect the independence of the judiciary.
“Where parties, including the Government, disagree with their findings, they should do so through the appellate process.”
Baroness Carr said she has also written to the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, who is also Justice Secretary.
Responding to Baroness Carr’s comments, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said politicians are “perfectly entitled to comment on decisions by judges”.
He added: “This is especially the case with human rights-based cases, where judges have adopted increasingly bizarre and expansive interpretations of vaguely worded ECHR clauses.”
Mrs Badenoch herself insisted that politicians “must be able to discuss matters of crucial importance in Parliament” and the exchange did not “compromise the independence of the judiciary”.
She added: “This is not just some legal loophole that can be closed, but requires a fundamental overhaul of our flawed human rights laws.”
The family of six at the heart of the case brought up in the Commons – comprising a mother and father and their four children who were aged 18, 17, eight and seven in September – were displaced when their home in the Gaza Strip was destroyed by an air strike in the Israel-Hamas war.
They applied for entry to the UK using the Ukraine Family Scheme to join the father’s brother, who has lived in the UK since 2007 and is a British citizen, but this was refused in May last year after the Home Office concluded the requirements of the scheme had not been met.
Responding to Mrs Badenoch’s question, Sir Keir said: “I do not agree with the decision. She’s right, it’s the wrong decision. She hasn’t quite done her homework, because the decision in question was taken under the last government according to the legal framework for the last government.
“But let me be clear, it should be Parliament that makes the rules on immigration. It should be the Government that makes the policy, that is the principle, and the Home Secretary is already looking at the legal loophole which we need to close in this particular case.”
Speaking to reporters, Baroness Carr also highlighted her concerns about “what appears to be a mounting campaign of attacks on judges”.
She said: “It is not acceptable for judges to be the subject of personal attacks for doing no more than their jobs – their jobs to find the facts on the evidence before them and apply the law as it stands.”
She added that if judges get it wrong, the protection is a challenge on appeal, and if the legislation is wrong it is Parliament’s prerogative to legislate.
Baroness Carr continued: “They (judges) do not court publicity, and they cannot speak out to defend themselves. They speak only through their judgments, and frankly, judges deserve better.
“A directly-related issue is security. Concerns over judicial security are at an all-time high, unfair or sensational, negative reporting creates real everyday risks to the safety of judges and their families.”
The Lady Chief Justice said judicial security had been an issue ever since she took up office, and it is a matter that came to a very “dramatic and concerning head” with the attack on Judge Patrick Perusko, during which a radiator was thrown at him at Milton Keynes Family Court at the end of 2023.
Baroness Carr added that it was an “incredibly serious attack”, but that “the silver lining of the very dark cloud” was it made everyone sit up and make sure that as much as possible is being done to “preserve the safety of judges in courts and tribunals”.
She also said that she has been looking at Canada, where they have a dedicated police unit devoted to judicial security, adding: “I think that we are, at the moment, potentially behind the curve.”
Baroness Carr continued that sometimes judges are subject to “devastating social media attacks”, and they can either disengage completely – which potentially means credible threats are missed, or engage, in which case they may be “traumatised” by reading this absolutely horrendous material.
