I feel I should start this post by saying that David Pannick QC is a brilliant lawyer who has all the personal & intellectual qualities needed for appointment as a High Court judge entirely on personal merit
I say this because Pannick took issue, in his Times Law column, with William Prest, the author of a biography of Lord Blackstone, for saying that ‘then, as now, loyal parliamentary political service was a desirable if never absolutely essential qualification for would-be English judges’
The long-standing practice of sometimes using appointment to the bench as a reward for parliamentary service to a political party expired finally at only an embarrassingly recent date
And although soon-to-be-lord Pannick is now going to serve in parliament as a peer, we should be grateful that his loyalty will be to the people
