RETIRING AGE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 29

RETIRING AGE

JUDGES AND THEIR WORK

Mr. Justice Swift expressed the opinion recently that no retiring age. should be fixed for Judges of the Hign Court, says the "Daily Telegraph. - He was giving evidence before trie. Royal Commission on the Despatch oi Business at Common Law. : "I speak without prejudice, ne added, "because I have almost reached the time when I am entitled to retire from the Bench, and I am considerably below any retiring age which is likely to be fixed." [A Judge is entitled to retire on pension after he has been fifteen years on the Bench. Mr. Justice Swift, who was appointed a Judge in 1920, is in his 61st year.] . There was, Mr. Justice Swift said, ample power already vested in the Lord Chancellor to get rid of anybody who, by age or incompetency, should be relieved of his judicial: responsibilities. . "If a Judge is competent to do nis work when he- has passed the age which you fix, I cannot see any reason why he should not go on doing it," he continued. Such a Judge, he felt, might be a most competent asset to the State when he was older. ; Earl. Peel (chairman of the Commission): Suppose we took the age of 75, would your view be unaltered? Mr. Justice Swift: Yes, and if the Judge was competent at 75 I should say let. him go on. Replying to Earl Peel on the question of; continuing' to hold assizes in certain smaller itowns, Mr. Justice Swift said: "People do not like to have taken away those', things which they have got: Nothing has' created greater indignation in some parts of the country than the closing, of gaols." '■■'- ■ Sit Rigby Swift supported the abolition of assize courts -in the smaller centres, and when the question was raised of a man's preference for trial 4n"hjs:ovvn town," replied:—- - ■ "How often does a man commit, a crime in the town where he and- his family reside? Few, I should think." He was of opinion that in a great many cases in which a man broke into a house he went a long way to do it.

Lord Peel: I have suffered that way myself; he was not a local man. There are now two; Judges in the King's Bench Division. who ; were appointed; more than fifteen years ageMr. Justice Avory, who is 83, and Mr. Justice Horridge, who is 77, both appointed in 1910. The only other King's Bench Judge over 70 is Mr. Justice Talbot, who is 74 and was appointed in 1923. In the Chancery Division the oldest Judge is Mr. Justice Eve, who is 78, and was appointed in 1907.