Justice reforms have increased burden on judiciary, says LCJ
Reforms to the efficiency of the administration of justice have increased the burdens on the judiciary at a time when their pay and pension packages are being cut, according to a report from the lord chief justice, Igor Judge.
Judge (pictured) said the period covered by his latest report on the work of the courts - January 2010 to June 2012 - had been a ‘time of exceptional national difficulty’ during which the country experienced continued economic crisis and last summer’s riots.
He said the administration of justice had not been ‘immunised’ from the economic crisis and pointed to the widespread reforms and reviews across criminal, civil, family and tribunal systems.
‘The perceptive reader will appreciate that these changes, all intended to improve the efficiency of the administration of justice without any diminution in its quality, add considerably to the burdens on the judiciary,’ Judge wrote in a foreward to the report.
His report notes the 34th report of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) which highlights the fall in value of judges’ remuneration, given the three-year pay freeze and pension reforms.
In relation to pay, the SSRB said the value of the take-home pay of circuit judges had fallen by 15.9%; district judges and circuit judges by 16%; high court judges by 17%; and Court of Appeal judges by 18.4%.
Judge said the morale, recruitment and retention of judges of the highest calibre ‘depends in part on the adequacy of their financial reward’. He warned that the pay and pension reforms are ‘likely to cause judicial retention and recruitment problems’.
Looking at criminal justice, Judge said that over the period covered by this report, while the volume of cases and number of sitting days had reduced, the number of cases dealt with in a day has increased and backlogs had fallen, particularly in London.
These improvements were driven in part by the work of the judiciary to reduce the number of unnecessary hearings, late guilty pleas and the length of trials.
On family justice, he said the rise in applications for care and supervision orders in recent years had continued to place considerable additional demands on the courts and other parts of the system.
The number of civil claims has fallen progressively from 2,183,539 in 2006 to 1,616,536 in 2010, but said Judge, the pressures on the civil justice system are powerful given the increasing complexity of cases.
The Administrative Court too ‘remains under enormous pressure’ he said, in particular when dealing with urgent applications for interim relief and judicial review in circumstances where people are being removed from the UK by charter flight.
Comments
Hard done by judges and their tiny pensions
The fact that a variety of reforms of the UK judicial system appears to have increased the burden on our judiciary must come as no surprise to anyone who is involved in the legal profession. But as for this apparent whinge about the low level of judicial pensions – well, there can be very few high street lawyers with anything approaching the pension pot due to judges. So the hard done by judges will just have to struggle by without any sympathy from solicitors.
So the burden on the
So the burden on the judiciary has increased. Just wait till the savagery and wanton destruction to legal aid takes effect.
Haha! A judge in his own
Haha! A judge in his own case-generally believed to be unacceptable.
Had the judiciary spoken out about other members of the legal profession, it could expect some sympathy. As it is, they are very well paid and pensioned-they can resign if the job's too tough, but none will.
Effectively, another set of whinging overpaid bureaucrats.
Judicial Isolation
Judges really do live in the past. A past where solicitors hold such a privileged position that they must behave like saints or be penalised. A past where solicitors and barristers earn so much that they will earn more than judges and have greater pensions than judges. Wake up! Its a wasteland out there with solicitors and barristers facing unprecedented competition from people who could never be described as saints and who face unprecedented reductions in earnings and no pensions at all. Applications for judicial appointments will be oversubscribed for years to come.
Judges
Wait till QASA kicks in and they have more work to do!!
Anyone who has represented anyone who has pleaded not guilty in the Magistrates knows what a bureaucratic nonsense is played out day and daily just to list a trial.
The PCMH process is not much better.
Notwithstanding the backlogs in Crown Courts and Higher Courts Nick Herbert MP, Minister at MoJ, wants to pilot Saturday and Sunday Courts. What's wrong with a Crown Court pilot for evening and weekend sittings? At the same time MoJ wastes millions on a failed IT project in High Court.
Add to that the LSC making up new rules for LF1 mileage claims which are not based on the Specification (which states mileage rate as 45p) and apparently this isn't a further assault on Solicitirs (well it feels like it!!!).
Only when MoJ/LSC talk to Solicitors about the reforms that are required will lasting effective reform be put in place.
Too many civil servants and "consultants", especially the IT consultants, have wasted money and time on ridiculous ideas of no worth.
Stanley Brodie QC report
According to the “The Cost to Justice” report prepared for the conservative party by Stanley Brodie QC, the cost burden imposed on justice by an unnecessary civil service in the lower courts is wasting billions of pounds each year; more than the savings made in court closures. Implement the report and return the money to making our justice system fair.
If we stop replacing Lay Magistrates with salaried District Judges (MC) under the spurious notion that the latter is cheaper because they are quicker (as opposed to fairer and cheaper). The millions saved each year would help maintain the pay and benefits of our independent Judges and who knows, we might even have enough to pay for more legal aid.
We're all in this together - aren't we?
High Street lawyers are going to take a pasting from the various reforms regarding ABS's, abolition of success fees, removal of legal aid and so on. If we have to take a substantial reduction in our already modest incomes why the hell shouldn't judges and other civil servants also take a hit?
The average judge has already had a successful legal career anyway, so will (or should) have salted away far more than most people at that age. They don't need huge salaries to attract them, being a judge is far more about status than money.
Meanwhile the pensions that we poor sods in the private sector were conned into buying become less valuable every year. The income that your pension fund will produce is now less than half what it was just a few years ago, so the prospect of retirement is increasingly a prospect of penury.
But the judges and their chums at the MoJ have no worries on this score. They will be cushioned in their retirement by whopping great index-linked pensions all paid for by us.
The fact that their pensions haven't been affected as private ones have means that in real terms they have had a massive increase in contributions from their employers which far more than wipes out any income freeze.
We're all in this together - aren't we?
High Street lawyers are going to take a pasting from the various reforms regarding ABS's, abolition of success fees, removal of legal aid and so on. If we have to take a substantial reduction in our already modest incomes why the hell shouldn't judges and other civil servants also take a hit?
The average judge has already had a successful legal career anyway, so will (or should) have salted away far more than most people at that age. They don't need huge salaries to attract them, being a judge is far more about status than money.
Meanwhile the pensions that we poor sods in the private sector were conned into buying become less valuable every year. The income that your pension fund will produce is now less than half what it was just a few years ago, so the prospect of retirement is increasingly a prospect of penury.
But the judges and their chums at the MoJ have no worries on this score. They will be cushioned in their retirement by whopping great index-linked pensions all paid for by us.
The fact that their pensions haven't been affected as private ones have means that in real terms they have had a massive increase in contributions from their employers which far more than wipes out any income freeze.