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The rise of judicial diplomacy in the UK: aims and challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2019

Gregory Davies
Gregory Davies*
Affiliation:
Wales Governance Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
*
*Author e-mail: daviesgj6@cardiff.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper examines the aims and challenges of ‘judicial diplomacy’ in the form of bilateral meetings between UK and supranational judges. Drawing from in-depth interviews, extra-judicial writings and other documentary sources, it argues that judicial diplomacy has become an important feature of the work of senior judges in the UK, allowing them to pursue jurisprudential and strategic aims. In jurisprudential terms, the judges have sought to improve the quality of judicial decision-making at the domestic and supranational levels. Strategically, they have striven to maintain robust inter-institutional relations and maximise their influence at the supranational level. The pursuit of these aims has taken on renewed significance in the context of Brexit but may raise questions for the protection of judicial independence and impartiality. The judiciaries should therefore consider steps to improve the visibility of these interactions and their value.

Keywords

public lawConstitutional Reform Act 2005judicial diplomacyBrexitjudicial independence
Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 77 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Legal Scholars 2019

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Phil Fennell and Jiří Přibáň for supervising the doctoral research from which this paper was developed. I also wish to thank Daniel Wincott, David Feldman, Benjamin Yong, Hélène Tyrrell, Aleks Ford and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions. I am also grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for its support in funding this work, ESRC grant, ‘Between Two Unions: The Constitutional Future of the Islands after Brexit’, ES/P009441/1.

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57 Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Part III.

58 UK Supreme Court The Supreme Court Annual Report and Accounts (2009-10, HC 64) p 15. On the increased administrative and financial independence of the UK Supreme Court, see Gee et al, above n 2, ch 8.

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63 Much of this information was helpfully provided by the International Team at the Judicial Office. The rest was pieced together from the ECtHR's records, available at http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=court/president (last accessed 27 August 2019).

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78 Interview with Justice 5 of the UK Supreme Court (London, UK, 11 July 2014).

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86 Interview with Justice 2, above n 82.

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137 Hazell and O'Brien, ibid, at 72.

138 Daily Mail, above n 44.

139 The former ECtHR President, Dean Spielmann, spoke of the need for confidentiality as self-evident: ‘By the very nature of the exercise, the content of our exchanges is not placed on any public record’: Spielmann, above n 65.

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