IMPORTANT STEP TO DEMYSTIFY SYSTEM
LORD Gill’s decision to ditch the wigs and gowns for civil appeals is as welcome as it is timely.
Well into the 21st century, the courts are emerging from the 17th – and only just.
As a solicitor, my uniform is a suit and a clean shirt – I rarely wear a tie – and the idea of prancing about my l i ttle suburban office in pinstriped trousers, a silk cloak and a white bow-tie, let alone a wig, would be ridiculous.
I entirely get why judges, advocates and other court personnel wear the old-fashioned stuff. It’s tradition, and sometimes justified as engendering respect for the dignity of the judicial process, and even affording anonymity in the wider world where they might come up against a disappointed litigant or friend of a convicted accused in a pub.
It is the result of hundreds of years of tradition and I appreciate that letting go is no simple decision. But come on!
Esoteric garb is no longer a badge of superiority in the wider world. Politicians don’t routinely ‘gown up’.
Senior doctors and professors don’t put on special clothes. American lawyers wear suits. US judges do wear gowns – but they are simple garments that sit over shirts and ties, with no wigs or fancy cravats.
There is a ridiculous position that if a lawyer stands before a court without a black gown and tries to address the sheriff or judge, he is refused, and told ‘I can’t hear you’ – not because of any auditory malfunction of the bench, but because of a perceived lack of formality. More than once over the years, I have had to urgently borrow or lend a gown for a hearing where – for perfectly legitimate reasons – I or a colleague have had to come to court without it.
And then, in some cases, you don’t need a gown, but in others you do. It is a bit ridiculous, frankly. The Supreme Court in London is ahead of the Court of Session. The judges in session sit in plain suits and appear on television hearing their appeals and there i s no l oss of solemnity or authority.
Indeed, psychologists might tend to the view that innate confidence and security do not require visible shows of difference or superiority, and the old-fashioned saying ‘handsome is as handsome does’ should be a sufficient motto for how our courts and judges appear and are regarded.
The quality of justice is not dependent on the panoply of the courts, but on the attention and decision- making that emanate from them.
I heartily endorse this latest of Lord Gill’s developments of our courts, and hope it is simply another step on the way to a general demystification of our courts and legal system.