The Gazette 1973

EDITORIAL The patience of a Judge The following leading article from the Guardian on 11 May 1973 is published without comment.

regularly meet to discuss this question. A similar attempt to produce more uniform standards of conduct in court could produce a noticeable improvement, for the present feeling of judges that their conduct is immune from comment encourages the indulgence of tempera- ment. Only three weeks ago the Lord Chancellor read a wise lecture to magistrates on the judicial tempera- ment—which means a deliberate attempt to suppress one's own inclinations; the Lord Chief Justice might give a similar lead to judges. Secondly, the authorities should recognise the human strain which is put on those judges who hear only criminal cases. To ask a man to maintain an open- minded impartiality for year after year of listening to the details of mean and hurtful crimes is asking him to be rather more than human; it is nearly always after long service that judges acquire a reputation for im- patience. It might be wise to limit the period over which any judge is exposed to an unbroken succession of criminal trials; a spell hearing the tangled civil disputes which are brought to court, where there is no temptation to feel driven by the need to defend society against the wrong-doer, might relieve the strain. If such steps did not relieve the situation, then atten- tion should be given to the more radical demands of reforming lawyers—for a complaints procedure apart from the courts of appeal, and for some power to secure the early retirement of judges whose conduct is too generally criticised. But to urge such steps before the problem has even been officially recognised is pre- mature; we should first ask that the judiciary should make a greater effort to regulate its own conduct.

The need to re-try the Barn Restaurant murder case is, as Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson has pointed out, a public misfortune—and an expensive one; but the case also draws attention to a more general public issue which ought to be brought into the open. To raise the issue is not to cast any reflection on the conduct of this particular trial. No-one with experience of the criminal court, however, can doubt that some judges have earned a reputation for being prosecution-minded, for interventions and comments which can harry the de- fence. In one or two extreme cases the Appeal Court has set aside verdicts on the ground of excessive inter- vention from the bench, but these are rare exceptions. More generally the question is one of court-room atmosphere—and it is by no means clear that an im- patient judge actually assists the prosecution; a clever defence counsel can secure the sympathy of the jury against such interventions and so bias their judgment in favour of the defence. What is clear is that a judge who fails to maintain judicial detachment does not help to ensure that justice is done. If a problem so well known to lawyers is so little debated, it is because it is not easy to suggest how the situation can be improved without in some way de- rogating from the treasured principle of judicial in- dependence; but surely there is no need for the authori- ties to he entirely helpless. Judges, after all, recognise that their different temperaments could lead to a dangerous inconsistency in sentencing policy, and they

THE SOCIETY Ordinary General Meeting

Branigan, T. Jackson, B. P. McCormack, A. J. McDonald, R. Tierney. The President addressing the meeting said : Ladies and Gentlemen, It falls to my lot as President for this year to address you on the occasion of this biennial meeting at Killar- ney. It has been customary in the past for the President to comment on current events affecting the profession and its clients. I propose to depart a little from this practice during this address and to make some com- ments on a matter that must affect us all, practitioners and clients alike, namely the future of our profession. Where do we stand? Where are we going? What is likely to be the business of the profession in 10, 20 or 35

An Ordinary General Meeting was held at the Great Southern Hotel Killarney on Saturday, 12 May 1973. The President took the chair. By permission of the meeting the notice convening the meeting and the minutes of the last general meet- ing of the Society were taken as read. Mr. Donal E. Browne addressing the meeting on behalf of Mr. Gerald Baily the President of the Kerry Law Society who was unavoidably absent welcomed the Society to Killarney. On the proposal of the President seconded by Mr. Gerard M. Doyle the following members of the Society were appointed as scrutineers of the ballot for the election of the Gouncil for the year 1973/"74 : R. J.