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Briefing

Judges

A job for life

From Socialist Review, No. 182, January 1995.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

• Over one in three people say that they have less faith in British justice than they did five years ago, reported a NOP survey in 1992.
   
• The biggest fall was among the middle income and middle aged group. Nearly 23 percent of professionals and managers had ‘little or no’ faith in British justice, but this rose to 38 percent of skilled manual workers and unemployed.
   
• Judges are appointed by politicians, either the prime minister or the Lord Chancellor (a government member), and usually after discussions with other judges. For example, in 1990, all bar one Law Lord (a judge sitting in the House of Lords), and all the Appeal Lords, had been appointed by Thatcher.
   
• In 1991 when the Lord Chancellor suggested judges should not be recruited exclusively from the Bar, Lord Lane told the House of Lords that ending this monopoly would be, ‘the worst threat to British freedom since Hitler’.
   
• Judges are paid massive salaries. In 1990, the Law Lords received £82,750, the Appeal Court judges £79,500 and High Court judges £72,000. This is for working an average of 25 hours per week, and doesn’t include perks like free transport and ‘out of town’ lodgings. Judges obviously experience the ‘feel good factor’, having been given a pay rise this year of 12.5 percent.
   
• Retirement comes at the age of 75, although they can return to specific cases if they choose. Judges cannot lose their pensions, they cannot be sued for anything said or done in their capacity as a judge, and the last time a British judge was sacked was in 1701.
   
• Judges share a remarkably similar background. In 1991, the Law Lords had all been educated at public schools, nine of the ten had gone on to Oxford or Cambridge, six out of ten had come from titled families. Out of 31 Court of Appeal judges, 25 had been to Oxbridge colleges.
   
• Of the 84 High Court judges in 1993, 80 percent are Oxbridge graduates. Only three are women. Of all judges (including Circuit and District), less than 1 percent are black.
   
• Barristers can now ask the Lord Chancellor if they can become a judge but the Lord Chancellor can refuse the application without an interview and without giving a reason.
   
• Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was the first woman High Court judge, appointed in 1979, who assured the public she was still ‘very much a housewife’ (Sunday Telegraph). She was also the sister of Tory Attorney General Sir Michael Havers, the daughter of a High Court judge and a Tory candidate in Lambeth in the 1959 election.
   
• Most judges insist they lead ordinary lives. Over a quarter of all senior judges belong to the Garrick Club. Mr Justice Harman had never heard of Bruce Springsteen or Gazza, refused to recognise the term ‘Ms’ in court and divided women into three categories, ‘wives, mistresses and whores’.
   
• Not only do very few women become judges, they fare badly in front of them. The sharp end of this has been in rape cases, and more recently those involving date rape. Outrage greeted judge Bertrand Richards who said that a woman, ‘was guilty of contributing negligence’ because she had been raped when hitchhiking home late at night.
   
• This kind of comment is not exceptional from the judiciary. Summing up in a rape trial, Judge Wild stated, ‘If she doesn’t want it, she only has to keep her legs shut’, and Judge Sutcliffe directed a jury to be sceptical about a rape victim’s evidence, saying, ‘It is known that women and small boys are liable to be untruthful and invent stories.’
   
• Research by groups such as the Society of Black Lawyers has shown that not only is it very difficult for black and Asian people to become judges, but that they also suffer greater injustice in court. Blacks are less likely to be granted bail than their white counterparts, and are more likely to receive higher sentences for similar offences.
   
• Even in cases like those of Winston Silcott or the Cardiff Three, where there was no evidence to support prosecution, the judges accepted the word of the police and directed the jury to find the defendants guilty.
   
• Trials by jury result in a higher rate of acquittal than trials where judges and magistrates alone decide guilt. But only around 2 percent of cases make it to a jury trial, and even then judges frequently direct the jury to find a particular result.
   
• The Nazi John Kingsley Read was taken to court for incitement to racial hatred after saying, ‘One down, a million to go,’ after an Asian student had been murdered. The judge, Neil MacKinnon, seemed to agree with him, saying, ‘We are allowed to have our own views still, thank goodness, and long may it last ... I wish you well.’ Over 100 MPs called for his dismissal. He stayed in his post, but was not given any more cases dealing with racism.
   
• If a jury finds someone guilty, the judge still decides the sentence. And if the law stands in the way, as Lord Denning said of himself and his judicial colleagues, ‘We have ways and means of getting round the law.’

 
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