THE UK Supreme Court and the courts in England and Wales and all tribunals across Britain do not have a system that shows where judges and tribunal members have been forced to step aside from cases due to actual or possible conflicts of interest.

As The National revealed on Monday, Scotland is shortly going to have an expanded register of judicial recusals that records when judges and sheriffs withdraw from cases, but no such register exists for the judiciary south of the Border or for any public tribunal.

Now the legal campaigner who has fought for Scottish judges to declare their interests for more than five years is calling on UK Supreme Court justices, the English and Welsh judiciary and the various tribunals to do the same and keep a register of recusals.

Peter Cherbi’s current petition before the Scottish Parliament is asking that the judiciary in this country declare their financial interests, as US Supreme Court Justices must do.

Cherbi accepts, however, that the Judicial Office in Scotland has already acted to bring in a more details register of recusals. Now he wants the UK Supreme Court to do the same.

Cherbi said: “We have now moved forward in Scotland in terms of judicial transparency with the publication of judicial recusals. If Scotland can do it, so can England and Wales, and the courts in Northern Ireland. The English justice system touts itself worldwide as the law of choice for litigants. If this is truly the case, then it is for the UK judiciary to be as transparent as Scotland and publish their own recusal register, and a register of interests as we are working on here.

“With the recent announcement of Lady Hale being appointed as President of the UK Supreme Court, I will be writing to her, requesting she consider creating a register of recusals for UKSC, as so far, the UK Supreme Court has also been silent on matters of recusals, which the public, court users, and legal representatives have a right to know.

“I shall also be contacting the European Court of Justice and the European Union to ask that courts throughout the EU be encouraged to publish recusal data and more detail on their judges. All EU citizens should have the same entitlements to judicial transparency we are now creating in Scotland.”

Cherbi thinks the Supreme Court and English and Welsh courts can lean learn from the experience here, where a register of recusals has been kept since 2014 and which is to be expanded.

He said: “Our approach in Scotland to improving courtroom and judicial transparency, fuelled by the hard work of cross party MSPs, the Scottish Parliament, fantastic support from Judicial Complaints Reviewers Moi Ali and Gillian Thompson, and backing by the media is a good reminder that team work and cross party support can bring significant change for the good.”

He also wants entities such as employment tribunals to be more open: “My ongoing investigations into tribunals suggests declarations of interests are more often than not concealed, and recusals are few and far between, if ever occurring, and there is little if anything those before tribunals can do about it.

“The public, who are being judged, are entitled to know who their judges are. It is as simple as that.

“Those who judge cannot be judge in their own cause, nor write and approve their own rules, without expectation of full transparency and accountability. Independence of the judiciary is guaranteed, and no one would ever question it. However, those who judge must live by the same laws and expectations of transparency they enforce upon the rest of us.

A spokesman for the UK Supreme Courts said: “Justices are bound by their judicial oath and a code of conduct to declare any relevant interest in a case to the parties, before they consider the matter. There are no current plans to publish a register of recusals.”