Blackstone Lecture 2025: Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr on ‘The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 – Twenty Years On’

Second-year Chinenye Uwakwe (2024, Jurisprudence) is President of the newly relaunched Blackstone Society. She writes below about the recent Blackstone Lecture given by the Rt Hon. the Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the Hill.

Since 1976, Pembroke has hosted and invited esteemed guest speakers to deliver our annual Blackstone lecture series, established to provide audiences with the distilled intellectual thoughts of the most distinguished legal minds of the late 20th and early 21st centuries on some of the most pressing legal topics.

On Friday 28th November 2025, we were honoured to welcome to Pembroke College the Rt Hon. the Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the Hill, Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, to deliver our forty-first Blackstone Lecture.

Baroness Carr was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2020, sworn of the Privy Council in 2021 and became Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales in 2023, the first woman to head the judiciary of England and Wales since the office’s inception in the thirteenth century.

We were also pleased to introduce student representatives and committee members of the restored Pembroke College Blackstone Law Society: Chinenye Uwakwe (President), Jemma Croucher (Vice President) and Oisin Hart (Secretary). The Society aims to serve as the student voice of Pembroke Law, enriching Pembroke’s legal community through informative events that connect students with legal professionals, alongside practical support on applications for internships, vacation schemes, training contracts and pupillages, as well as revision and networking opportunities.

Students Jemma Croucher, Chinenye Uwakwe and Oisin Hart introduce Baroness Car

In this year’s lecture, Baroness Carr opened with “Reform in haste, repent at leisure” and reflected on the making of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 ‘Twenty Years On’, focusing on reform as a process rather than its substance. She compared the CRA with the Victorian Judicature Acts 1873–75 and drew lessons through three themes: ‘Ad hocery vs deliberation’, ‘principle vs pragmatism’ and ‘systematic vs piecemeal reform’. 

She concluded the CRA was “less the product of deliberation and more of an ad hoc reform”, arguing that, unlike earlier systematic, principle-led reform, it was more “piecemeal”, with “principles developed and agreed after the fact of reform” as “pragmatism-based principles” rather than “principle-based pragmatism”. Her central lesson was that, in approaching constitutional reform, “principle, pragmatism and a willingness to be bold is the order of the day”, and the method used should be “considered” and “systematic”.

The full lecture is available to watch on Youtube.

“[The Lady Chief Justice's] in-depth comparison of the process leading up to the CRA and the Judicature Acts was thorough and enlightening," shares one student who attended the lecture. "I enjoyed her use of anecdotes from legal history to illustrate her points about the CRA, and I found her efforts to engage with students particularly refreshing.” 

Another adds: “I really enjoyed her detailed historical account of the CRA’s development and the Victorians’ more radical, deliberate approach to constitutional reform. I admired her willingness to argue that we need to be not only more systemic and deliberate, but also open to change and bold where necessary to secure better outcomes in future aligned with our aims.”

After the lecture, Baroness Carr took time to answer questions from the audience of students, Law Fellows and faculty members, alumni and the Judiciary members, before joining the Master and members of Pembroke’s Law community for a dinner in Hall.

We are very grateful to Atkin Chambers for generously sponsoring the event.

Beyond their involvement in the Blackstone Lecture, the Blackstone Society has recently held events on Covid litigation and art mediation, a revision session for Law Moderations, and a visit to a London law firm. Looking ahead, the Society hopes to broaden awareness of its work, deepen engagement across the Pembroke law community, and become an even stronger advocate for law students and all those interested in the legal profession. The Society warmly welcomes support in any form, including volunteering for guest speaking, mentoring, hosting visits, sponsoring events, or offering advice and opportunities to students.