The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) published the results of its consultation exercise on the reform of the system of appointing Queen’s Counsel (QC) at the end of last month. The headline statistic is that a clear majority – 63% – of those that responded are in favour of leaving the current system of the state, conferring the rank QC to senior advocates unchanged.
This figure is less surprising when the composition of those that chose to respond is considered – of the 376 individuals and organisations that made submissions to the DCA consultation paper, Constitutional Reform: The Future of QC, issued in July last year, 203 were individual judges and barristers or associations of barristers and judges such as the Bar Council, the Commercial Bar Association and the Chancery Bar Association.
