A spokesman said: “He is trying to institutionalise the grip of the executive around the neck of the judiciary, and that is not healthy for the long-term constitutional arrangements of the country.”By legislative creep, we will gradually erode the separation of powers, something which has for hundreds of years been seen to be something which is a strength in our democracy.”Sir Michael Davies, a former High Court judge, said: “He wants to tell the judges how to sentence people and it won’t work.” Mark Littlewood, of the civil rights organisation Liberty, said: “Longer prison sentences may help the Home Secretary appear ‘tough’ but they will do nothing to reduce crime. It will be judges that act within it.”The Bar Council charged Mr Blunkett with trying to take a constitutional “leap in the dark” by undermining the independence and discretion of the judiciary. Judges who wish to impose shorter sentences will have to explain their reasons in court, leaving them open to public criticism.The overhaul of the tariff system follows a ruling last year by the law lords that the Home Secretary’s powers to decide how long criminals stay in prison breached human rights.Mr Blunkett said yesterday that judges had proved incapable of providing clear and consistent sentencing in murder cases He said: “It will be Parliament that decides the structure. Under current practice, most are eligible for release after 20 years.Minimum jail sentences of 30 years would be imposed for the murder of police officers, killings involving guns or explosives, race murders and sadistic sexual killings All other murders would attract an automatic 15-year term. Under the proposals, “life would mean life” for those who abduct and kill children, terrorists and multiple murderers. Lawyers, judges and civil rights campaigners accused David Blunkett of abusing his political power yesterday by forcing courts to stiffen prison sentences for murderers.
In the biggest overhaul of murder laws for nearly 40 years, the Home Secretary proposed a rigid system of penalties for killers that would lengthen the minimum amount of time they have to serve.But the reforms set him on a collision course with members of the legal profession, including his cabinet colleague, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor.

He said: “These include cases in which the victim was performing his duties as a prison officer at the time of the crime or the offence was a terrorist or sexual or sadistic murder or involved a young child.”There is little here that Mr Blunkett would take issue with, except, perhaps, that they leave judges with too much discretion In Mr Blunkett’s plans, the judge’s hands will be tied.. With immediate effect, Lord Woolf replaced the single 14-year normal tariff with two tariffs – a normal and a higher starting point of 12 and 16 years respectively.In “especially grave” offences, a term of 20 years and upwards would be appropriate. Although he accepted that killers who committed the most serious murders could face jail terms that would mean “little or no hope” of release, Lord Woolf said sentencing “starting points” for murder should be 16 or 12 years. Mr Blunkett has vowed to retain his right to set minimum prison terms for the worst case of murder.Yesterday’s announcement on murder sentences flies in the face of Lord Woolf’s guidelines, released in January last year.

Championed by another of Mr Blunkett’s adversaries, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, this legislation has directly resulted in government policy having to be rewritten or watered down.Lord Woolf, backed by senior judicial figures, is opposed to rules that leave no discretion to treat each sentence on its own merits. In the past, home secretaries and lord chief justices have tended to resolve their differences in private.The catalyst for the current impasse was the implementation of the Human Rights Act in October 2000, which gave judges the power to declare government policy incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. He is a politician guided by his own political instincts and his strong working-class background, which tell him that tough policies on law and order will curry favour with the public.Another reason why the battle between the Home Secretary and the Lord Chief Justice has become so visible is the willingness of Lord Woolf and Mr Blunkett to fight their corners in public. This is a job that must be performed without fear of favour, he says.But Mr Blunkett appears to have little time for the subtleties of an unwritten constitution or the urbane arguments posited by an elite class of judges. Mr Blunkett believes the Government should have the final say on what is a fair law, while Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, argues that judges are the ultimate custodians of justice.Lord Woolf has said on a number of occasions that it is the role of the judiciary to ensure that the executive of the day respects the law of the land.

The Tory former home secretary Michael Howard had a number of run-ins with Lord Taylor of Gosforth, who was Lord Chief Justice, particularly over the minimum jail term for the two killers of James Bulger.But the animosity between Mr Blunkett and the judiciary stems from a difference of opinion about the correct balance of the British constitution, rather than from one or two difficult cases. David Blunkett’s plans to use Parliament to force the courts to bend to his will on tough new sentences for murderers were met by collective exasperation from judges across the country yesterday.
The Home Secretary has ignored the Lord Chief Justice’s recommendations on murder tariffs and he has made no attempt to disguise his enmity for the role of the judge in the law-making process.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said he had been the subject of much judicial criticism and could see no reason why judges, like politicians, should not be held to account for their rulings.Mr Blunkett is not the first Home Secretary to fall out with the judiciary. They are appointed to the statutory retirement age of 70, subject to good behaviour, and their five-year appointments are automatically renewed.. Hundreds of part-time judges could be sidelined to make way for “new blood” under Government plans to change the terms of employment for the junior judiciary.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, wants to move a “significant minority” of the 1,365 Recorders of England and Wales into a reserve pool of judges where they would not be offered any more “sittings”.The change would allow more barristers and solicitors with judicial ambitions to begin a career on the Bench, while at the same time weeding out those part-time judges who were considered unsuitable for full-time judicial posts.Recorders, whose number include Cherie Booth QC, are part-time judges who sit mainly in criminal cases. “Rena had scrawled the word ‘whore’ down the side.”The trial continues.. I called the police.” He said Ms Stewart’s car was parked near by.