Time is ripe to judge the judges

My personal brushes with the judiciary have been few and far between. As a cub reporter, I was once ticked off at Crawley Magistrates Court by a particularly stern magistrate for chewing gum in court. In fact, I was chewing a pen top, but thought better of putting her right on that detail. And once, while covering a trial at Chichester Crown Court, the CPS prosecutor handed the judge a copy an article I had written and claimed I had committed contempt of court by identifying the defendant. The judge waved away the complaint and my heart started beating again.

A little more recently, though, I was witness to judicial behaviour that I thought if not shocking, at least unacceptable. A barrister had accused her set of chambers of racial discrimination. Although she was being represented in court, she did attempt to address the judge directly on one occasion. Not the done thing, of course. But she was a barrister, so she might perhaps have been given the benefit of the doubt for acting out of instinct. Not a bit of it. The judge jumped down her throat as if he had been waiting for her to stand up all along and ticked her off in a most unpleasant way. Whatever his motivation, from where I was sitting it felt like he had taken sides with the establishment against an outsider.

In the 10 or so years that have passed since then, the judiciary has become significantly more approachable and ‘in touch’ with the wider world. But nobody who plies the courts would pretend that they would not benefit from a little feedback from the people who appear before of them. This is crux of an initiative being spearheaded by the City Litigators Forum, which believes that judges would benefit from ‘upward appraisals’ from the people over whom they preside - an idea that has received backing in a survey conducted to coincide with next week’s Legal Week Litigation Forum.

A few years ago, such a suggestion would have been laughed out of court. But attitudes are changing and the judiciary is becoming considerably more approachable, as reflected by the fact that the conference is being chaired by a judge - Master Whitaker, of the Queen’s Bench Division - while another, Lord Neuberger, will be debating the need to boost diversity within the profession.

Still, there are limits… it may yet be some time before M’luds are packed off on a management bonding weekend to Snowdonia.

john.malpas@legalweek.com