The House of Commons Justice Committee, reviewing a draft bill on constitutional change, has said that proposed changes to the role of Attorney General - the government's chief legal adviser- do not go far enough. Specifically, they are uncomfortable that the job of giving legal advice to the policial executive should, itself, be held by a politician. The BBC news story mentions three recent instances where this dual role has been of concern:
- The decision to call off a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the 'Al Yamamah' arms deal with Saudi Arabia;
- The advice provided to the Blair government concerning the legality of the Iraq war;
- The 'cash for honours' enquiry, in which a decision had to be taken as to whether to take legal action against some ministers in a cabinet of which the Attorney General was a participating member.
The committe's view apparently is that the greater interest would be best served if the roles of "chief legal adviser" and "governent minister" were not held by the same person.
In parallel, it's interesting to note that, as a result of some re-arrangement of civil service departments, the same civil servant is now responsible for the UK's passports, its planned identity cards, and its register of births, deaths and marriages (in other words, some of the key registration processes on which the issuing of credentials critically depends).
These elements - particularly the register of births, deaths and marriages - need to be managed with complete integrity relative to one another. It's no good having an ID card and passport issuing process which depends on correct certification of births, deaths and marriages if the integrity of the latter is questionable. And yet the fact that a single person is now responsible for oversight and governance of both the certification and the credentialling elements does not seem to have raised any concerns.
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