This is, with all due respect to the Green Party, not just a silly idea, but one that leads down a path we don’t want to go.

And I’ll explain why. Thread... https://twitter.com/donnchanuig/status/1263732015117017093

It is silly because it seems to be premised on some notion that the AG gives advice only as a party to which they are connected wishes to hear.

That, lads, ain’t it. AGs frequently tell governments that they can’t do the things they want.

That view appears to be premised on the notion that the AG in Ireland is the same as the AG in the USA or the UK.

It’s not. The AG in the USA is closer to the Minister for Justice, the AG in the UK a sitting MP.

The AG in Ireland is a separate Constitutional officer with a role defined in Article 30. The AG is specifically *not* a member of the Government, but is adviser *to* the Government.

https://assets.gov.ie/6523/5d90822b41e94532a63d955ca76fdc72.pdf

The Greens, in this proposal, seem to suggest that Attorneys General are not advisers *to* the Government, as Art. 30 (1) states, but advisers *for* a party; that anyone not from their party will be an adviser *for* another party; so they want the AG to be adviser *for* them.

That is, frankly, insulting.

It is insulting not just to any lawyer connected with any other party, but particularly insulting to lawyers connected with the Greens, because it suggests that they think those Green lawyers will advise *for* a party, not independently *to* the Government on the law.

Little ye appear to think of each other, if that’s your view of each other, lads.

And Green lawyers have given ye no cause to be insulted so by ye as to their independence and duty to advise on the law as it is.

They also seem to think that the AG can act for them as a long stop to prevent actions decided by the Government collectively or give advice to achieve an end, which again doesn’t understand the independence of the AG and the advice the AG seeks, of of collective responsibility.

This shows why it’s silly: any lawyer worth becoming AG isn’t going to be a catspaw, and will advise independently regardless of what you want politically.

But it is also a dangerous and decidedly unwanted path.

We have the example next door: the removal of Dominic Grieve QC.

Dominic Grieve QC acted, as AG of E&W, in the very highest traditions of the profession. An active Tory MP, he repeatedly told Cameron and May, as Home Secretary, that what they wanted to do was in breach of, especially, the HRA Act 1998. Independent, fearless advice.

So, as reward for being right on the law, and advising *to* rather than advising *for*, they sacked him.

He was replaced by someone whose career highlight was “has done video hearings”.

The replacement’s successor was held in contempt of the Commons.

That has redounded neither to the credit of the office nor the law.

Politicising an office like the AG as adviser *for* rather than adviser *to* never does.

A small party that needs independence in the law rather than raw political muscle should be the last to encourage such.

One can, therefore, why this is a profoundly bad notion.

By all means pick the best AG available regardless of party connections; there has been at least one Attorney General a member of a party not in government.

But picking an AG on this basis, as catspaw, is just not on.

I would join with Mr. Moran’s elegant analogy by way of submissions, and have nothing further to add. https://twitter.com/navi226/status/1263739547306864641?s=21 https://twitter.com/navi226/status/1263739547306864641