James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the new Attorney General matters so much

Suella Braverman, Geoffrey Cox’s replacement as Attorney-General, is not a household name. But she is one of the most significant appointments of the reshuffle, as I write in The Sun this morning. Why, because she is serious about taking on judges who she thinks are inserting themselves into issues that should be left to parliament.

‘The key issue for the new AG and many others is that ‘metropolitan liberal elite’ policies that have been rejected by the electorate are being imposed by courts, both domestic and foreign’ one Boris ally tells me.

The government’s spine has been stiffened by the fact that in just the last week, it has been blocked by the Appeal Court in London from deporting prisoners who are foreign nationals on the grounds that the mobile reception where they were being held was not good enough and lost a case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on the police keeping the DNA of convicted criminals.

The aim, I understand, is to reverse the tide of decisions that has ‘privileged criminals over victims’. Preparatory work is already underway for the government’s Democracy and Rights Commission which is meant to come up with a solution to this problem. But the question is whether a solution that satisfies Braverman and Downing Street is possible while the UK is under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

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