<P> Where British national law had previously impacted the international development of judicial independence, the British Constitutional Reform Act 2005 marked a shift, with international law now impacting British domestic law . The Constitutional Reform Act dramatically reformed government control over the administration of justice in England and Wales; importantly, it discontinued the position of the Lord Chancellor, one of the country's oldest constitutional offices, who was entrusted with a combination of legislative, executive, and judicial capacities . The Lord Chancellor served as speaker of the Upper House of Parliament, the House of Lords; as a member of the executive branch and member of the senior cabinet; and as the head of the judiciary . Historically, the appellate function had a connection with the executive branch due to the types of cases typically heard--impeachment and the hearing of felony charges against peers . The Constitutional Reform Act established new lines of demarcation between the Lord Chancellor and the judiciary, transferring all the judicial functions to the judiciary and entrusting the Lord Chancellor only with what are considered administrative and executive matters . In addition, the Constitutional Reform Act replaced the Lord Chancellor by the Lord Chief Justice as head of the judiciary, separated the judicial Appellate Committee of the House of Lords from the legislative parliament, reforming it as the Supreme Court, and creating a Judicial Appointments Commission . The creation of the Supreme Court was important, for it finally separated the highest court of appeal from the House of Lords . </P> <P> Thus, the United Kingdom, where judicial independence began over three hundred years ago, illustrates the interaction over time of national and international law and jurisprudence in the area of judicial independence . In this process, concepts and ideas have become enriched as they have been implemented in successive judicial and political systems, as each system has enhanced and deepened the concepts and ideas it actualized . In addition to the UK, similar developments of conceptual cross-fertilization can be seen internationally, for example in European Union law, in civil law countries such as Austria, and in other common law jurisdictions including Canada . </P> <P> The International Association of Judicial Independence and World Peace produced the Mt . Scopus International Standards of Judicial Independence between 2007 and 2012 . These built on the same association's New Delhi Minimum Standards on Judicial independence adopted in 1982 and their Montréal Universal Declaration on the Independence of Justice in 1983 . Other influences they cite for the standards include the UN Basic Principles of Judicial Independence from 1985, the Burgh House Principles of Judicial Independence in International Law (for the international judiciary), Tokyo Law Asia Principles, Council of Europe Statements on judicial independence (particularly the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on the independence, efficiency and role of judges), the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 2002, and the American Bar Association's revision of its ethical standards for judges . </P> <P> In recent years, the principle of judicial independence has been described as one of the core values of the justice system . </P>

Independence of judiciary from the control of executive and legislature