Hermer Attacks Starmer for Judge Decision Comments – Guido Fawkes

Hermer Attacks Starmer for Judge Decision Comments

Attorney General Richard Hermer is up this afternoon in front of the Human Rights Joint Select Committee. He kicked off with a paean to the ECHR which is this year celebrating its 75th anniversary…

Hermer mounted a hyperbolic defence of the ‘hard-working’ judiciary, and especially its application of ECHR articles, from press scrutiny:

“I want to make clear in all my comments about the decisions of any court that I am categorically not criticising judges… We are entering a dangerous moment in which not simply on social media but indeed on the floor of the House of Commons people are attacking judges on personal basis. That is entirely unacceptable and creates a huge threat to the rule of law and the independence of the Judiciary.”

Guido wonders who that could refer to. The Attorney General also poured cold water on any possibility of disapplying Article 8 of the ECHR (family life) when dealing with immigration cases: “You can have a very very robust but fair process in an asylum and immigration context that is entirely compatible with Article 8 –  Article 8 does not prevent a very robust, a very quick, a very efficient but fair asylum and immigration process so we need to just check that there’s the right calibration on casework decisions.” Some in government think that tweaks won’t be enough…

Hermer also claimed that there was “disinformation” at play when it comes to the ECHR and used the Albanian chicken nugget child example, claiming that what is “not doing the rounds” is a rejection of the chicken nugget claim by the Upper Tribunal. Despite that fact very clearly making it in to reports…