Judges at 'breaking point' finally speak out

The protocol that dictates judges should avoid commenting on government policy has, until recently, kept all but the most outspoken or nearing retirement quiet on the impact of the drastic cost-cutting reforms across the justice system (though in a judgment published on 11 February, the Court of Appeal highlighted the false economy of the legal aid cuts which shift dosh saved by not paying for lawyers onto the court and judiciary).

However, in a survey of all salaried judges across the UK,
the judges have made their voices heard loud and clear, and they are steaming beneath their wigs.

Increased workloads, poor morale among a reduced number of court staff who provide poor support, rubbish IT, and the loss of experienced colleagues has left judges’ morale at a low ebb, with 86 per cent saying their working conditions are lower than they were five years ago.

Retired Court of Appeal
judge Sir Henry Brooke
(@HenryBrooke1) took to
Twitter to voice his dismay:
“@legalhackette 1/2 Judicial morale has plummeted in the eight years since I left the bench. Gloomy reading.”

A rise in litigants in person has left judges to pick up the pieces in the absence of lawyers – as
in the case mentioned above, where the Court of Appeal had to waste time and money researching the law itself to ensure justice was done.

Half the judiciary say changes in recent years have brought them to ‘breaking point’. And they lay the blame for this squarely at the feet of government – two-thirds (62 per cent) blame new legislation and 91 per cent blame government policy initiatives.

They say they feel less respected by society than they did ten years ago, and only 2 per cent feel valued by the government.

To cap it all, the majority
(78 per cent) say they are not paid enough, and two out of three (75 per cent) reckon they have suffered a loss of net earnings over the last five years.

This is a state of affairs the judges will not put up with, and they will vote with their feet. Almost a third (31 per cent) say they would consider early retirement in the next five years. This exodus would see over half (58 per cent) of the appellate court and more than a third (39 per cent) of the High Court reaching for their carpet slippers.

Lawyers, most of whom are paid significantly less than their judicial brethren, have been voicing the same concerns for some months. While the government has managed to ignore their cries, they surely cannot ignore this scream from the bench. It has to be a wake-up call to the fact that the whole system, not just the judges, is at breaking point.

Rather than making grand statements about the rule of law and Magna Carta in advance of the trade junket that is the Global Law Summit, surely the Lord Chancellor would be better served doing something to prevent the collapse of the justice system that he so proudly declares to be the envy of
the world. SJ