After the government announced that there would be a full public inquiry into the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower attention has now turned to the judge who will take the lead role.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, aged 70, previously worked as a judge for more than 20 years and is widely respected within the legal profession. He has, however, come under criticism since the announcement was made as a result of a couple of judicial decisions that sparked controversy and do not necessarily show him in the most sympathetic light.

The first case, LC (China) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 1310, found in favour of the government and allowed for the deportation of a convicted criminal in spite of an Article 8 argument that LC had two young children who live and reside in the UK. In the concluding remarks to his judgment Lord Justice Moore-Bick said

“Neither the fact that the appellant’s children enjoy British nationality nor the fact that they may be separated from their father for a long time will be sufficient to constitute exceptional circumstances of a kind which outweigh the public interest in his deportation.”

The second case, Nzolameso v City of Westminster [2014] EWCA Civ 1383, was one that I personally followed quite closely and ended up writing the Wikipedia article for after the case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

The judicial review concerned a decision by Westminster City Council to discharge their housing duty after Ms Nzolameso became homeless but rejected an offer of housing 50 miles away in Bletchley; citing that she was settled in Westminster, had ongoing health concerns and did not want her children to have to change schools.

In finding for the Council Lord Justice Moore-Bick stated

I accept that the court should be astute to ensure that local housing authorities give proper consideration to their duty under section 208 [of the Housing Act 1996] and do not merely apply policies which lead to accommodation being provided outside their own districts in a routine and unthinking manner. On the other hand, many authorities, of which Westminster is one, are under great pressure to discharge their statutory obligations and should not be prevented from making sensible use in an orderly way of the housing stock available to them, whether within or outside their own districts.

When the case did later come before the Supreme Court it was held that the actions of the Council had not been sufficient to discharge their legal duty and the ruling from the Court of Appeal was overturned.

The problem with attempting to use these cases (or any others) to decry the appointment of Sir Martin to the Grenfell Inquiry is that the underlying assumption is that the ruling in the case is directly related to the personal politics of the judge involved. In other words because the former Lord Justice found in favour of the government and against the individual claimants in these instances this is indicative of a broader latent bias.

Naturally any judge at any level is susceptible to some personal biases that can affect reasoning but to actually accuse a judge of politicking in court decisions is something quite different. To be honest it is hard to imagine that a judge would be able to progress this far in their career if this were indeed the case.

If anyone doubted the power of the press, turning Sir Martin Moore-Bick into a 'controversial' judge with a simple headline shd change that

— Nicholas RL (@Nicholas_RL) June 29, 2017

Both of the quotes above demonstrate a careful balancing of both sides of the argument. People may disagree with the eventual decision and they absolutely should do so but Moore-Bick is ultimately applying an interpretation of the law based on his legal expertise and the case in front of him. To suggest that there is anything more than this going on is ridiculous and completely without foundation.

Instead of jumping on this Inquiry and attempting to discredit it before it has even begun, Moore-Bick should be given a chance to do the job he has been appointed to and judged on his performance within this context. Attempting to divine bias on the basis of one or two previous judgments is akin to reading tea leaves.