Judges Vary
I spent just under 30 years as an advocate in various English courts. I met some good judges, some bad judges and some mediocre judges. I remember the worst judges!
A Mixed Experience
I worked in one area where the same judge sat as a County Court judge and as a judge at the Assizes, now called the Crown Court. He was reputed to eat young solicitors for breakfast, and I was a young solicitor. I was so frightened of him that until the day I left legal practice I prepared every file as if I might have to explain it to him this afternoon.
At this distance in time, and being now the age he was then, I realise why he seemed so cross. The reason was that even then so many lawyers were inadequate, incompetent, or dishonest.
He was in court one Wednesday, on a guilty plea. It was a grandfather who had sexually molested, but not actually raped, two child granddaughters.
The Probation Officer’s report recommended Probation. It was at the minor end of the scale for child molesting, a first offence, he was very sorry, there were now adequate safeguards etc.
“Show me the psychiatric report.”
On learning that there was no psychiatric report, the judge said
“I can send this man to prison for seven years, and there is no psychiatric report?”
The judge banged his gavel.
“This man will appear before me on Monday – and there will be a psychiatric report!”
I saw in the local paper the following week that there had been a psychiatric report and the man was put on probation.
Succinct
The judge was quite good about timewasting.
He said to one young barrister appearing on a guilty plea,
“Mr X, you have not appeared before me previously.
“It may help to know that I believe anything that can be said for a man can be said in seven minutes. After that, my attention begins to wander.”
At the time I thought this unfair. However, unless there is a very rare case, he was right.
He also said to one barrister, as he stood up to give his seven minutes,
“Mr Y, I have read the Probation Officer’s report and I am minded to give him Probation unless you wish to persuade me otherwise”. The barrister sat down as the other possible sentence was imprisonment.
The judge never even nibbled me, but the fear of him made me make sure that every file was perfect every day. The Judge was known to demand to see the file.
I learned much later why he ate young solicitors. It seems that a young solicitor whom he trusted had telephoned him out of hours to ask for an urgent injunction, which he gave. A few days later, when the judge learned the full facts, he realised the order should never have been made. An injustice had been done to the other party because the young solicitor had not told the judge the full facts and the judge had believed him. After this, the judge had no time for young solicitors.
Possession at Wandsworth
I was in my first job as a qualified solicitor. I had never appeared at court on a possession case.
My client was a Housing Association which provided cheap housing. The legislation was fairly new, and over a thousand Housing Associations had been set up. The Housing Associations needed to be registered, but there was quite a backlog on the applications for registration. As a practical measure, Housing Associations which had applied for registration were allowed to operate as Housing Associations while waiting for registration.
The tenant wanted to transfer to Council housing, to be near her mother. If she gave up her tenancy, she would be “intentionally homeless” and not eligible for a Council tenancy. If she were evicted, then she could have a Council tenancy. So she stopped paying rent, and explained to the Housing Association why she needed to be evicted.
The case was due to be heard at Wandsworth County Court. My boss explained that the case would take less than 5 minutes because it was unopposed.
Because I was so inexperienced and nervous I made sure I really knew the procedure, the legislation, and the facts of the case.
When I got to court, the cases whistled through. I doubt they were taking even 3 minutes each. There were a lot of cases, and the judge was quite brisk.
The usher explained to me that as I was a stranger to this court, and young, I would be heard near the end while the judge tried to clear out as many lawyers as he could.
Just the experience of seeing the cases take place was comforting. It really was straightforward.
Just before my case was called, a group of youngish people came in at the back of the court. I assumed they must be friends of someone in one of the cases. They were young, wearing typical student clothing which in those days was jeans and sweaters.
I stood up. Something had happened!
The judge was questioning every step of my grounds, every step of the procedure, every fact in the case. He really wanted to know why my Housing Association was not registered and whether he could make an order.
After forty minutes we stopped for lunch.
After lunch, going back for more, the judge took about a minute to give me the order I was seeking, and moved on to the next case.
I asked the usher what had happened to me and why?
The usher explained that the group of young scruffs were actually student barristers. Once the judge knew this, he took the next case, which just happened to be me. He was making sure the young barristers knew that even an unopposed case had to be prepared properly. If I had not been prepared he would have roasted me for the instruction of the student barristers.
Thank goodness I had prepared!
Immigration Judges
The quality of the Immigration Judges varied wildly. Some were absolutely excellent. Some needed shooting.
When I first got into immigration work, there were a couple of really nice elderly judges. They were sweeties. They always got to the nub of the case and their decisions were always correct.
Unfortunately, neither of them could write a judgement properly.
I knew before we started that if I lost I would win on appeal, and the case would be sent back to be heard again in front of a different judge.. If I won, the Home Office would appeal, etc. One poor client had them both!
Another judge had a very high opinion of himself, which was not shared by anyone else.
I could tell before the case began whether I would win today or lose today. If, as frequently was the case, he did not like the Home Office representative, I would win. The merits of my client’s case did not matter.
On one occasion my fiancee client had given evidence. She was really strong, and I was about to call the mother as corroboration.
The judge told me not to bother, a clear signal that I had won.
When the decision came out, my client had lost! She had lost because there was no corroboration!
I appealed, and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal took the unusual step of halting the case to ask the Home Office representative present on the day for his comments. He wrote to the court to say that he had read my appeal and had no comment. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal gave judgement to my client.
He came unstuck!
Writing a judgement is careful work, best done in a quiet room with time to think. At one time, before he was told not to, this judge used to give judgement at the end of the case. When he had finished giving judgement, the losing lawyer was invited to give grounds of appeal immediately. The experienced ones did not, saying that we wished to study the decision carefully before deciding whether to appeal. The reason we were so coy was that when the typed version came out it was often mysteriously strengthened in the areas of the weaknesses we had identified.
The local Law Centre was fortunate to have on its staff an experienced stenographer. Tape recording the proceedings would be illegal. but all advocates take notes. The stenographer recorded the entire proceedings. From her record, it was clear that the judge had asked the client more questions than her lawyer had!
The typed version of his judgement was distinctly different from what the judge had said in court – and all the changes were in the area that the Law Centre solicitor had identified as weaknesses and appeal points in the judgement. I heard that the comment at the Immigration Appeal Court was “Is he still sitting?”. He sat for a long while after.
A Difficult Situation
In preparing cases for young ladies bringing fiances and husbands to the UK, I spent hours working on the case with each young lady. I got to know her.
Most of the young women were very clear in what they said about their partner. They were not mere puppets doing what the family said – they wanted their young men.
I had one judge who was a very nice person, but she almost always found against my client, and said my client was lying. My young ladies were not lying.
Appeal was very difficult, because the higher courts were very reluctant to interfere with a judge’s assessment of a witness. The case was then tarnished by the finding that my young lady was lying on oath, and the next time the partner applied it was very hard to win.
It got to the point where if I had this judge my advice to the client was to withdraw the appeal. She was going to have to go round again anyway, and it was better not to ber tarnished as a liar.
The process was that I went before the judge and asked if the case could be heard by another judge. She quite properly refused, and I then withdrew the appeal. I did not charge the client for coming to court that day, so over time I lost over £2,000 in income.
One day a case involved one of my own employees. I thought it better for internal personnel reasons to get a barrister from London to take the case. I did not go to court.
When they got there, it was that judge!
My worker discussed with the barrister, and they decided to go ahead. The judge said my worker was a liar, because she had said the husband was poorly educated but the letters from him (in translation of course) were lovely letters and quite long.
My translator did an affidavit explaining that the originals averaged an error a line, but he was translating what the man was trying to say rather than translating all his errors. We won on appeal. Eventually the judge transferred to a court I rarely went to.
It has to be said that it is highly embarrassing for a judge when a senior and respected advocate in the court refuses to have cases heard by the judge because he thinks the judge is unfair. It was difficult for the judge, too.
What was really odd was that I sometimes had this judge on political asylum cases and she was fine!
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