Animosity at the heart of Home Secretary's relationship with the judiciary

David Blunkett's plans to use Parliament to force the courts to bend to his will on tough new sentences for murderers were met by collective exasperation from judges across the country yesterday.

The Home Secretary has ignored the Lord Chief Justice's recommendations on murder tariffs and he has made no attempt to disguise his enmity for the role of the judge in the law-making process.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said he had been the subject of much judicial criticism and could see no reason why judges, like politicians, should not be held to account for their rulings.

Mr Blunkett is not the first Home Secretary to fall out with the judiciary. The Tory former home secretary Michael Howard had a number of run-ins with Lord Taylor of Gosforth, who was Lord Chief Justice, particularly over the minimum jail term for the two killers of James Bulger.

But the animosity between Mr Blunkett and the judiciary stems from a difference of opinion about the correct balance of the British constitution, rather than from one or two difficult cases. Mr Blunkett believes the Government should have the final say on what is a fair law, while Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, argues that judges are the ultimate custodians of justice.

Lord Woolf has said on a number of occasions that it is the role of the judiciary to ensure that the executive of the day respects the law of the land. This is a job that must be performed without fear of favour, he says.

But Mr Blunkett appears to have little time for the subtleties of an unwritten constitution or the urbane arguments posited by an elite class of judges. He is a politician guided by his own political instincts and his strong working-class background, which tell him that tough policies on law and order will curry favour with the public.

Another reason why the battle between the Home Secretary and the Lord Chief Justice has become so visible is the willingness of Lord Woolf and Mr Blunkett to fight their corners in public. In the past, home secretaries and lord chief justices have tended to resolve their differences in private.

The catalyst for the current impasse was the implementation of the Human Rights Act in October 2000, which gave judges the power to declare government policy incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Championed by another of Mr Blunkett's adversaries, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, this legislation has directly resulted in government policy having to be rewritten or watered down.

Lord Woolf, backed by senior judicial figures, is opposed to rules that leave no discretion to treat each sentence on its own merits. Mr Blunkett has vowed to retain his right to set minimum prison terms for the worst case of murder.

Yesterday's announcement on murder sentences flies in the face of Lord Woolf's guidelines, released in January last year. Although he accepted that killers who committed the most serious murders could face jail terms that would mean "little or no hope" of release, Lord Woolf said sentencing "starting points" for murder should be 16 or 12 years. With immediate effect, Lord Woolf replaced the single 14-year normal tariff with two tariffs – a normal and a higher starting point of 12 and 16 years respectively.

In "especially grave" offences, a term of 20 years and upwards would be appropriate. He said: "These include cases in which the victim was performing his duties as a prison officer at the time of the crime or the offence was a terrorist or sexual or sadistic murder or involved a young child."

There is little here that Mr Blunkett would take issue with, except, perhaps, that they leave judges with too much discretion. In Mr Blunkett's plans, the judge's hands will be tied.