The first female lord chancellor in 800 years has formally opened the legal year at Westminster ahead of a courtroom challenge that could test the resilience of the UK’s unwritten constitution.
Delivering the main scriptural lesson at Westminster Abbey to hundreds of scarlet and purple-robed judges, Liz Truss, who is also justice secretary, read from the book of Deuteronomy where it describes God bringing “the Pharaoh’s slaves” out of Egypt. “We will be in the right,” she concluded.
The passage may not have been intended as a biblical allegory of Brexit for the chosen nation, but it was recited the day before the first of a series of high court cases over who has legitimate authority to trigger article 50 of the treaty on European Union, which formally begins Britain’s departure from the EU.
The first hearing is due in Belfast on Tuesday where a cross-party alliance of assembly members, led by former Northern Ireland justice minister David Ford, will argue that only parliament and not the prime minister, wielding royal prerogative powers, can initiate article 50.
A similar action starts at the high court in London on 13 October next week, when the attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, will lead the government’s courtroom battle to resist a similar submission brought by expatriate Britons and UK citizens, which argues that parliamentary acts cannot be undermined by ministerial orders.
The cases threaten to expose the fragility of constitutional agreements across the UK, offering rival interpretations in which key decisions could fall to be made by the judiciary, the executive or parliament.
Truss herself was an ardent remainer during the referendum campaign and the service in Westminster Abbey included prayers for “all nations of the European Union; for all who make and administer law within their legal jurisdictions ... ” as well as the popular hymn that begins “He who would valiant be, ‘gainst all disaster”.
Following the ceremony, the judges in their heavy wigs, gilt-brocaded robes and accompanied by their court clerks processed out of the abbey into parliament to be addressed by Truss again. Her main political priorities are more likely to involve prison reform, the development of online justice, and imposing restrictions on legal actions against soldiers and the Ministry of Defence.
Addressing the judges in Westminster Hall after the service, Truss said: “I’ve only changed tradition in one respect. I am the first lord chancellor to have a train-bearer today. That’s because I am – as far as I know – the first lord chancellor to wear high heels ... But otherwise we continue as before.
“Our judges, many of whom are here today, are rightly celebrated for being independent, impartial and utterly incorruptible.
“And I am delighted to be working with a great generation of reforming senior judges, including the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas, with whom I recently published a joint plan for modernising the courts and tribunals.”
