Judges face new code of conduct to avert conflicts of interest

The private lives of judges are to be governed by a new personal code of conduct which would help to ensure that their outside interests do not conflict with their court duties.

New rules are expected to advise judges against taking part in political events or sitting on cases in which their relatives have an interest.

A draft code of ethics, drawn up by the Judicial Studies Board, is being considered by a working party of the Judges' Council, a group of senior judicial figures who include the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, and the Master of the Rolls.

The review will be the subject of a wide consultation exercise to which the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, will be asked to contribute.

Lord Irvine, who is responsible for the discipline of the judiciary, said this week that each year he received about 1,000 complaints about judges of which only an "infinitesimal" number concerned the personal conduct of the judge. Most, he said, were about the outcome of litigation in which the complainant was involved.

But there has beenconcern about judges' political activities. Lord Irvine has dismissed a complaint that Cherie Booth QC, a part-time judge, acted improperly by soliciting support from Labour MPs before a vote on the invasion of Iraq. A retired civil servant had claimed Ms Booth's political activities were incompatible with her role as a judge. Lord Irvine ruled that Mrs Booth was acting in her role as the Prime Minister's wife, and that as a recorder, or part-time judge, she did not face the same political restrictions as a full-time judge, as "recorders only hold office while actually sitting judicially".

Three years ago Lord Hoffman's association with Amnesty International led to the re-hearing of a House of Lords ruling on the extradition of the former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

In 2001 the Judges' Council wrote to judges advising them that it would be "inappropriate" for them to take part in "quasi-political" events such as the Liberty and Livelihood March.

Under an agreement between the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor, any disciplinary action against a judge must first have the consent of Lord Woolf. This, Lord Woolf believes, "recognises the constitutional position of the Lord Chancellor, who in relation to judges below the High Court, can remove a judge for misconduct while protecting the independence of the judiciary".