best person  for top legal job the  best person for the job  should be appointed lord chancellor  and not necessarily a lawyer or mp  the courts minister has told mps.  under reforms  the post of lord chancellor is to be stripped of its judicial functions.  the lord chancellor...no more needs to be a lawyer than the secretary of health needs to be a doctor   said courts minister christopher leslie. the constitutional reform bill was entering its second reading on monday. mr leslie said:  the prime minister should be able to appoint the best person for the job whether they sit in the house of lords or the house of commons.  under the reforms  the law lords will also be replaced as the uk s highest legal authority by a supreme court and judges will be appointed by an independent panel rather than ministers.  in december the lords rejected a plea by current lord chancellor lord falconer that the holder of the job should not necessarily be a lawyer or a peer. the peers voted by 229 to 206 to say in law that lord chancellors must also be peers. the debate was carried over from the last parliamentary session  but with an impending general election time is crucial for the government to get the bill passed. mr leslie said it was irrelevant whether the post was called secretary of state for constitutional affairs or lord chancellor. he said:  what matters most is...whether it is reformed so that the post holder no longer has those conflicting duties.  it is no longer appropriate for a government minister to have such unfettered discretion in the appointment of judges.   shadow attorney general dominic grieve criticised the government on its plans to change what he said was an  exceptional institution   providing a  champion of the independence of the judiciary . the government had initially proposed to take this institution and  smash it to pieces   mr grieve said. convention should be  nurtured and celebrated   but the government distrusted and disliked it instead. he warned that unless ministers backed down over the lord chancellor remaining a member of the house of lords  the government would have  great difficulty  in getting the bill through parliament. former cabinet minister douglas hogg  whose father and grandfather served as lord chancellor  said the bill was  largely unnecessary  bureaucratic and expensive . but the tory mp for sleaford and north hykeham admitted the lord chancellor s role and office  cannot be frozen in aspic .