In the Observer, Nick Cohen makes the important point about the Lord Chancellor’s appointment of Lord Justice Potter to the post of President of the Family Division of the High Court. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has been accused of the crime of ‘cronyism’ because Potter, who had been his pupil-master at the Bar, is a former leading commercial lawyer and had been put in over the heads of senior Family judges who had been expecting to get the post on the principle of Buggin's bewigged turn. Well, maybe Falconer did appoint a friend. But the fact is that the Family Division desperately needs to be radically shaken up. And the only way to do that is to avoid at all costs promoting someone from within the Family Division, and appoint an outsider to the top job instead. As Cohen observes, the family courts are where secret injustice is too often done:

‘If Charles Dickens were around today, he'd be writing The Family Division. You might think that as a British citizen you are innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And so you are when you are charged with a criminal offence. But if you are ever unlucky enough to be faced with the prospect of having your child taken into care - a far worse punishment than a jail term for most parents - you will find that the state need only prove that you are guilty on the balance of probabilities…

‘If to make reform work Lord Falconer has to parachute in a crony, well three cheers for cronyism. Let's have more of it. If Dame Elizabeth doesn't like it, that's good. If Family Division judges are resentful, that's better. We should urge Lord Falconer to cram the bench with lawyers who haven't been contaminated by decades of secrecy. If he runs out of legal cronies, there's always his milkman, postman, lady who does and teenage children. Anything and anyone will be better than the status quo’.

Indeed.