Judiciary reprimanded for inappropriate comments

Twenty-eight judicial office holders were removed from office last year, a 12% rise on last year, and a further 18 resigned during conduct investigations, according to the Office for Judicial Complaints’ annual report published yesterday.

Matters investigated by the OLC included one instance where a magistrate refused to return to court following a disagreement with bench colleagues in the retiring room, and another where a judge made inappropriate comments that could be perceived as showing prejudice against a non-British defendant.

Of the 28 judicial office holders removed from office, 25 were magistrates, two were judges and one was a non-legal tribunal member. Twelve of the removals related to ‘not fulfilling judicial duties’; five resulted from civil or criminal proceedings; six related to ‘inappropriate behaviour of comments’; three were due to professional misconduct; one related to motoring offences and one to a conflict of interest.

A further 11 judicial office holders received a reprimand, and 11 were given formal advice or a warning.

The OLC’s annual report provides four anonymised case studies giving a sample of the issues it has dealt with during the year. In one, it said a reprimand and requirement to take training were imposed on a magistrate after they ‘did not return to court to adjudicate, following a disagreement with bench colleagues in the retiring room’.

In another case study, a reprimand, training requirement and removal from a mentoring list were given to an office holder who had used the words ‘we take exception to people coming to our shores and abusing our hospitality’ in open court, when addressing a non-British defendant. This was held to fall short of the qualities of social awareness and sound judgement expected of the judiciary.

Inappropriate comments by judicial office holders led to nine occasions where the lord chief justice gave informal advice to the office holder in question, six where he gave formal advice; four reprimands, four resignations and six removals from office.

The report showed that there were 422 complaints of inappropriate behaviour or comments against judicial office holders; 83 complaints of discrimination; 27 complaints that an office holder was not fulfilling their judicial duty’ (which normally relates to magistrates), and 19 complaints about conflicts of interest. There were 647 complaints in total, not including those that related to the outcome of a case, and therefore fell outside the OJC’s remit.

The figures relate to the period from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010. They do not therefore include the resignation of circuit judge Gerald Price, who resigned last month after losing an appeal against a decision to remove him from office following allegations over his private life.