Draft:Kilmuir Rules

The Kilmuir Rules established the principle that judges should keep out of the media. In 1995, responding to a request from the BBC for judges to participate in a series of programmes^[1], Lord Chancellor David Kilmuir said that:

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"every utterance which [a judge] makes in public, except in the course of the actual performance of his judicial duties, must necessarily bring him within the scope of criticism. It would moreover, be inappropriate for the Judiciary to be associated with any series of talks or anything which could be fairly interpreted as entertainment".

The main function of the rules was to protect the judicial independence of the UK courts. They outline that judges must restrict their interactions with the media, avoiding broadcasting, entertainment, or public speeches on controversial topics.

They were abandoned in 1987 by Lord James Mackay who believed them to be outdated with the needs of judicial independence in the modern political landscape^[2]. It was believed that independence would best be maintained if judges were able to allow judges to respond to the media, rather than maintaining total silence. Some have suggested that the withdraw of the Kilmuir Rules has led to an increase in judicial impartiality, however judges in the UK mostly maintain that they should not take part in media interviews, but it is not a legally binding rule^[3].