Judge Walden by Peter Murphy

Author:Peter Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2019-04-25T13:14:27+00:00

AN ISLE FULL OF NOISES

Last Friday

I’ve never understood why judges of the Crown Court are called circuit judges. It conjures up romantic images of a bygone age, of the itinerant judge mounting his horse to administer justice in some far-flung corner of the realm, his faithful clerk, a judicial Sancho Panza, bearing his books behind him on his donkey, to be greeted by the cheering crowds of citizens who have flocked to the town square to welcome his portentous arrival. Nothing could be further from the truth. All right: perhaps it worked, just, in the old days, when the itinerant Assize judge arrived at a town, tried a murderer, sentenced him to death, reserved judgment in the one civil case before him, and moved on to the next venue. But today? Not a chance. The system would collapse under its own weight in a matter of weeks. The last thing the Grey Smoothies want today is an itinerant judge.

Just imagine the travel costs, for one thing. How could they be sure that the taxpayer is getting value for money from the privatised feed and stable for the horse – or the judge? Then there would be the nightmare of trying to keep to the itinerary in the face of the volume of work, the problems of case management, the accidents of overrunning trials, the reality of delayed sentencing hearings, and all the rest of it. No, circuit judges don’t ride the circuits today.

Quite the contrary: when you’re appointed they tell you exactly where you will be sitting and warn you in no uncertain terms not even to think about applying for a transfer to another court for the first five years. So, if you live in Leeds and they want you to sit in Swansea, you either say ‘thank you’ politely and move the family to South Wales, or you turn the job down. And even after five years, they may then suggest that Manchester wouldn’t be a bad career move for you, even though there’s a Mancunian who would love to sit there who they’re sending to Basildon. It makes their lives much easier, you see, if they can treat judges as pawns in a game of administrative chess and don’t have to worry about them as people who may also be trying to have a life. They don’t have to lie awake all night – assuming they would anyway – worrying about some poor sod they’re forcing to choose between his family and the job he’s always wanted. How to put this? Viewed from the judicial perspective, human resources issues don’t seem to loom large in the administration of the courts.

So on the rare occasions I’m called upon to sit away from my base court, Bermondsey, it comes as something of a surprise: and never more so than today. Today I am to be asked, figuratively speaking of course, to saddle up my trusty steed and make ready to ride the circuit, to become a circuit judge in the literal sense of the term.

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