Some good, some turnips

Pricks on the bench ... Kevin McFee JP (High Court candidate) gives an overview of Justinian's Judges Survey from March 1995 ... Anger uncorked ... From our Déjà Vu Department  

Natural selectionNever in living memory has there been such a lively response on a matter of public importance. Justinian's Judges Survey has struck a rich lode of deep-seated concern, damnation and dismay.

We have had a very high response rate to our questionnaire which was sent out late last year. Subscribers were asked to nominate who, in their experience, they considered to be the three best and the three worst judges, and to give reasons.

Some of our subscribers have gone to enormous trouble in preparing very thoughtful answers, which reveal concerns about the calibre, behaviour, selection and capacity of some of our judicial icons.

Within the profession there is obviously frustration about the performance of some judges. The comments we received about behaviour are riddled with words like:

"Lazy ... unsuitable temperament ... rudeness ... lack of intellect ... mad bad and dangerous ... delusions of grandeur ... pomposity ... wastefulness ... bias ... chauvinism ... bullying ... slowness ... corruption ... ineptitude ... pedantry ... gutlessness ... gullibility ... neanderthal ... a disgrace to the bench ... simply appalling ... maniacal."

Other comments dealing with standards, selection and quality are also upsetting:

• "The standard is declining, appointment is now influenced by minority groups – gays/feminists/you name it. Legal ability and common sense are ignored in appointments. As a result the standard has slipped during the last 10 years." 
• "If the standards of conduct, behaviour and performance which judges apply to solicitors, and to a lesser extent barristers, for the purposes of discipline and striking off, were applied to judges and magistrates, the ranks of both would be decimated."
• "They can only be brought into the 21st century by a wholesale process of reform - de-robing and gender education might help. Judges should be prevented from retiring early, resuming (improperly) their sobriquets as QC, ensuring fat dollars as arbitrators and taking superannuation at the same time." 
• "To often judges move from cloister to cloister – brilliant at GPS, establishment university, High Court judge's associate, maybe Oxford, articles at establishment firm, bar then proving to be pricks on the bench." 
• "Some good, some turnips. Selection process should be changed completely." 

[Maybe it's time for another Justinian Judges Survey?]