The Brexit-supporting press has mounted a vicious assault on the three high court judges who ruled in the article 50 case. And it has undermined our constitution in the process. The government appears to be fuelling this attack. Sajid Javid, the local government secretary, described the judges as seeking to “thwart the will of the people”.

The judiciary is a pillar of our constitution. Allow faith in the judges to be eroded and that pillar is eroded at a huge cost to our freedoms.

The front page of the Daily Mail labelled the three judges “enemies of the people”. It described Sir Terence Etherton as the first “openly gay” judge, detailed Sir Philip Sales’ earnings when he was a barrister and worked for the government and captioned a photograph of the third judge “The Europhile: Lord Chief Justice Thomas”. The Sun and the Daily Telegraph stooped to spraying abuse with the same lack of concern for the constitutional place of the judiciary in our democracy.

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Our judges do not do politics. They do law. They are selected to be judges on their legal ability. Their political allegiance is irrelevant and plays no part in their selection – which is not, for example, the case in the US. The judges of the American supreme court, when confronted with the choice of Al Gore or George Bush in the 2000 election, which was contested in the courts, each came down on the side of the party that had nominated them. So Bush won because there were more Republican-nominated judges than Democratic. One of the things that has made the UK such a strong player in the global economy is that politics does not affect the rule of law or the decisions of our courts. This attracts business to the UK, because people know court rulings will not be influenced by politics.

The British public continues to have confidence in the independence and quality of judges. But both are undermined by this Brexit-inspired media vitriol. The attitude of the Brexiters seems to be: who cares about constitutional protections such as that which prevents the executive from just removing people’s rights on the prime minister’s say-so, and undermining casually the authority of judges? It is intensely damaging and sets up yet another conflict: judges against the people.

We must leave the EU in accordance with the referendum vote. But we must take care not to damage our constitutional framework in the process. Democracy and the rule of law are the two pillars of our constitution.

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There is very little doubt, when you read this judgment, that the judges have loyally obeyed their judicial oath and decided the case in accordance with the law and the facts. The principle that citizens have legal rights that cannot be taken away on the say-so of the executive without parliamentary authority was not in dispute. The question the judges had to decide was the extent to which rights given by the European Communities Act of 1972 were an exception to that principle. The court concluded unsurprisingly that these rights, which had been incorporated into our domestic law, weren’t an exception, and they cited previous cases stretching back decades, which made that clear. The ruling did not say there should be no Brexit or that Brexit should be delayed, but that Brexit must be done constitutionally not unconstitutionally. As a piece of legal reasoning it is firmly rooted both in accepted principle and decided cases. The decision reaffirms well known principles and applies them to Brexit in an authoritative way.

Yet the quality and impartiality of the judgment appears to cut no ice with either the Brexit media or some elements of the government. We trust our judges to uphold the law and the constitution impartially. This impartiality depends on judges not expressing views, so they can’t defend themselves. That’s why the government has an obligation to defend them and why the constitution places a duty on the lord chancellor to do so.

The government needs to make it clear that they dissociate themselves from these attacks and come to the defence of the judges. Ministers need to make it clear that they do not doubt for one minute either the integrity of the three judges, or that the judges have given what they believe to be the correct answer.

They should make it clear that the judges have in no way acted undemocratically or in opposition to the people, and that attacks on their integrity and attempts to undermine them personally are factually unfounded and undermine our country.

There is a world of difference between judicial decisions that have political consequences, as this one does, and decisions that are motivated by wanting a political outcome – which this one is not. To create a sense that the government is at odds with the judiciary and that judges are somehow in a different political camp from the government is both wrong and damaging.

The lord chancellor, Liz Truss, has a constitutional duty to defend the judges. She needs to make it clear immediately that the government has no quarrel with the judges and has total confidence in them. Disagreement with the judges is dealt with by appeal not by abuse. So far Truss has been completely silent, no doubt waiting for guidance from a prime minister who appears so mesmerised by the fear of what the public may do or think that she is willing to throw constitutional propriety overboard.

Truss’s silence feeds the sense that the government is either hopeless at avoiding conflict or couldn’t care less about the constitution.