Starmer faces 'King John' jibe from lady chief justice

Keir Starmer appeared to be likened to one of England’s most notorious monarchs today by the head of England’s judiciary.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

In a pointed intervention, Baroness Carr – the first lady chief justice – denounced claims that the government deserved credit for the way those involved in the riots were jailed within days over summer.

It was an example of how the “constitutional boundaries” between political and legal matters had been wrongly “blurred”, said Baroness Carr, who also called for courts to be “properly funded” as she revealed one judge was forced to climb on to a court roof to clear blocked gutters because of a leak.

In controversial remarks on the separation of powers, she compared it to King John, who was forced to sign Magna Carta in 1215 which stopped the monarch putting themselves above the law or meddling in the courts and became the cornerstone of basic freedoms.

Baroness Carr, who was appointed last October, said in her first Mansion House speech: “Suggestions that the listing of riot cases speedily in the criminal courts was a consequence of government action or pressure was a false constitutional narrative.”

The listing of court cases was “a judicial function – it cannot be otherwise”. She continued: ”One only has to think of King John…”