Murnaghan 18.05.14 Interview with Sir Paul Coleridge, former High Court Judge

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Sir Paul Coleridge has been one of the Britain’s most outspoken high court judges, he’s been taken to task a number of times for speaking out about family values and legal aid cuts and he’s just retired so he may not be mincing his words this morning.  Sir Paul Coleridge I’m glad to say joins me now, good morning to you Sir Paul.  There are two basic issues here, the act of speaking out for which you’ve been slapped down several times and the issue itself, the role of marriage in our society.  Tell me first of all your attitude to the senior ranks of the judiciary who told you off for speaking your mind. 

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: I want to say straight away that the last thing in the world I am in the business of doing is picking a fight with the senior judiciary and with my senior colleagues with whom I’ve worked for many, many years and for whom I have the greatest possible respect, including funnily enough Lord Chief Justice but I do think that there are certain issues upon which we can speak with greater authority than anything else, if we pick the right issues and the issue that I feel passionately about after four decades in the Family Justice system is the issue of family breakdown which is a very, very serious national, even international issue which demands the attention of the whole of society and I think that it is perfect okay for a judge the raw material of who’s work is family breakdown, to talk about family breakdown and to suggest what the cause is and to suggest what the cures are and, more importantly, to describe the effects which I have seen day in and day out for 43 years. 

DM: But Baron [inaudible], the Lord Chief Justice you referred to, thought differently. 

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: Well yes, there is a sort of blanket view and a blanket edict that the judiciary do not speak out on matters, particularly political matters but also matters which are controversial and likely to provoke a sort of media interest too much but I would say two things.  Firstly as I just said to you, what I do think is that we have a peculiarly important contribution to make because we really see it in a way that nobody else does, not even the lawyers, not the social workers, certainly not the politicians who come and go and I feel very strongly that therefore it is right for, occasionally and on a specific issue, for us to become involved and to express a view, that’s the first point.  The second point is, I’m not unique.  Just recently one can think of a number of very senior judges who have expressed themselves forcefully and of course extremely lucidly on subjects like legal aid cuts, gay marriage, feminism and the like and if you go back in history again, from time to time, not as a general rule but from time to time, judges – Lord Denning, Lord Diplock and I could go back in history and show you another half a dozen – from time to time have felt it right to express a view on matters of public interest and of course not long ago the senior judiciary sat in the House of Lords so they could speak out on these things whenever they felt like it.

DM: Do you think the media have a role in some of this and it is only nowadays with social media and all those kind of things that it only takes a very few people to complain and then the politicians run around and go oh my goodness me, here’s a judge speaking out of turn and no doubt the Lord Chief Justice and others pick up on it and you’re hauled in for a telling off.

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: Well the media of course have got a role and the whole purpose of me setting up the Marriage Foundation which I did two years ago, was to engage everybody, society, the politicians, all of us in this critically important issue and that is why I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer possible for me to sit everyday doing my day job and also promoting the cause of the Marriage Foundation which has obviously a very public profile, a deliberately public profile.

DM: The key message from the Marriage Foundation then?  It encapsulates your thoughts, as you say you’ve presided over so many cases and you’ve sat there thinking, what, you shouldn’t be getting divorced in the first place, I can’t see any reason why you are and it is going to be the children, if there are any, who are going to suffer.

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: The key message is very, very simple.  Family breakdown, whether it is married or unmarried, has appalling consequences, it has appalling consequences for the people concerned and anybody who has been through it will tell you how awful it is.  It has appalling consequences for wider society where there are children.  I have no problem where people don’t have children, they can change their partners as often as they like.  It won’t bring them very much satisfaction in the long run but it’s no concern of mine or particularly of the Marriage Foundation.  What we are passionate about is the unspoken damage to children as a result of family breakdown and we can … the Foundation’s job is to confront the problem, keep it in the public eye, discuss it, research it and try and turn the tanker. 

DM: A lot of divorced couples with children say we get on perfectly well, the children don’t appear to have suffered, there are a lot of those children from those broken down marriages who will listen to this and say we’re fine.    

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: The key to what the answer to that is what you just said, they don’t appear to have suffered.  I will tell you very straight, we held a conference earlier this year on the impact of relationship breakdown and I use that word because it isn’t just marriages, indeed the biggest problem are cohabiting couples, not marriages, and the impact that had on children.  We had a world renowned speaker at that conference, Penelope Leach, who has written more books on this subject and knows more about it than anybody else and she said movingly and tellingly at the beginning of that talk, the separation of parents may sometimes be good for the parents, for obvious reasons, sometimes relationships are at rock bottom, sometimes it may improve things for them or one or them, not usually both but for one.  It is never good for children, never, never, never, never are children happy about the separation of their parents whatever attempts may be made to paper over the cracks and make it look easier and all the rest of it and the latest American research shows beyond any doubt at all that children that go through a so-called civilised break up of their parent’s marriage are every bit as likely to be harmed in the long term as the ones who see the plates flying around. 

DM: Don’t you see this, what you have been saying there, don’t you see this as the reason you were called in by the Lord Chief Justice, why you were sanctioned, disciplined, whatever it was because a lot of people will be sitting here listening to this interview going, you’re wrong?  This is very controversial stuff.

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: You’re wrong.  What people will tell you is anecdotally how it was for them, I talk about the research and the statistics because there is masses of it now and the research and the statistics is unequivocal, absolutely unequivocal and I don't think it is a terribly controversial thing to say that family stability is good for everybody, particularly the people concerned and that it’s good for society and all our problems, or a huge number of our problems amongst the children and the young people of our country are caused unfortunately by the mass family breakdown that we have in this country which is not talked about because we don’t dare talk about it because we might upset somebody. 

DM: Well we support you talking about it now and you are free to do so, no doubt we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.  Thank you very much indeed, Sir Paul Coleridge.

SIR PAUL COLERIDGE: It’s a pleasure, thank you.