Retirement of English Judges.

Hastings Standard, Issue 250, 18 February 1897, Page 4

Retirement of English Judges.

A movement is now on foot among members of the English bar which has its comic aspect as well as its serious purpose. It is proposed that the principle of compulsory retirement on account of age, which obtains in the Army and Navy and Civil Service, should be £ pplied to the Judges. Writing upon this subject, the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herpvld says : —A Judge on circuit or in the London Law Courts is environed by such personal homage, is treated as a being so entirely apart, that he is in danger of falling into the habit of self-regard which was the ruin of King Herod. There is something ludicrous in the bumptiousness of some Judges on the Bench. In the case of hapless High Sheriffs who inadvertantly nip the great man's dignity the consequences are terrible. Increasing age tends to strengthen these eccentricities and infirmities of temper. We have during the past fortnight seen something of the consequences of overlong occupancy of the high offices in the petulancy of Mr Justice Hawkins. People laugh at his constant outbreaks, his snubbing of counsel, and the effect worked upon his mind by casual reference to the harmless, necessary police. After all, it is a serious matter, not only as affecting the dignity of the Judicature, but the proper administration of the law. Vice-Chancellor Bacon's clinging to the authority aud emoluments of his office long after an age at which the most rarely gifted man could not expect to wield one with effect or honestly earn the other, became a public scandal. The late Lord Coleridge grievously embarrassed the political party to which he owed his promotion by his resolve to die at his post. He slept there a good deal, his siesta in cases continuing after luncheon being as regular a part of the proceedings as was the opening of the pleadings. At present Lord Esher is making things as embarrassing for the Conservative Government as Lord Coleridge did for their predecessors. It has long been settled that when the Mastership of the Rolls is vacant Sir Richard Webster shall succeed. The disposition of the Attorney-Generalship and other appointments consequent to the run of promotion are dependent upon the term of vacancy at the Rolls. But Lord Esher shakes his head and grimly smiles with some personal variation on the manner of Vice-Chancellor Bacon and Lord Coleridge when in amalogous circumstances. J';/ suis ct j';/ rtstr is the motto of the English Judge cherished even after he has passed the far boundary line of four-score years. What the Bar, especially the Junior Bar, think is that when the time comes at which a Judge has earned his pension his retirement should be compulsory. What would be even more interesting to know than the thoughts of the Junior Bar on the new movement are the private reflections and mutual confidences of the Judges thereupon.