Barristers call out bullying behaviour by judges

Barristers have spoken out about the bullying they are subjected to by some judges, breaking an old “taboo” by speaking publicly about judicial inappropriate behaviour.

The issue first became public knowledge in October when, as Legal Futures reports, barrister and executive committee member of the Criminal Bar Association, Mary Aspinall-Miles, broke ranks to cast light on judges’ bullying behaviour in a series of tweets.

More recently, family barrister Jo Delahunty QC wrote about her experiences of bullying in this month’s issue of Counsel magazine. She said: “I know of colleagues who have been gratuitously shouted at and undermined. It has happened to me. I have seen it in the High Court. I have been told of it in the county court. I have received a number of emails from members of the Bar at all levels of call who have experienced judicial bullying and who have felt deskilled and humiliated as a result …Are those who complain being ‘snowflakes’, who should just take it as part of the cut and thrust of a challenging work environment? No. Judges have power, and with power comes responsibility.”

In the same issue of Counsel, barrister Judith Trustman recounted being asked for advice by a junior advocate at a county court following an interaction with a judge that involved inappropriate behaviour: “Just on his feet in his second six, he had arrived for a case in which none of the lay clients or opposing representatives had turned up. Before he knew he was the only person present, he had handed in a document upon which he intended to rely in the hearing. Called in by the judge, he went into court alone. She threw the document across the table, saying: ‘What the fuck is this? I am not reading this.’ He wanted to know if this was normal judicial conduct.”

Trustman also described the problems inherent in reporting inappropriate behaviour to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO), a body which she believes is not fit for the task of dealing with everyday bullying beyond the more obviously outrageous examples of judicial misconduct. She said she had ultimately decided not to pursue a complaint herself because of those problems: “The JCIO would not necessarily have served the complaint well. The judge in question had not used any bad language nor employed what could clearly be identified on a tape as criticism. It is hard to know whether or not the cruelty, the acid sarcasm or the deployment of legal reference as thinly disguised weapons of humiliation would have been discernible to a JCIO listener.”

Trustman and Delahunty have also been joined by family barrister Lucy Reed, who wrote about her experiences of judicial bullying on her well-known blog, Pink Tape.

Barristers on the receiving end of bullying by judges have been advised to raise their issues with their heads of chambers and other colleagues, rather than approach the JCIO in the first instance. The chair of the Bar Council, Andrew Walker, also highlighted how the intense pressure felt across the justice system is not helping the situation: “Barristers may be the first target of judges’ frustrations borne from matters beyond their control – such as the rising number of individuals having to represent themselves in court, without any legal expertise, as a result of cuts to legal aid, leading to cases being much more difficult to deal with and taking much longer. Poor court conditions and a heavy workload of troubling cases can also take their toll on those involved – barristers and judges alike. There is a pressing need to address these much wider problems with the functioning of our legal system, but none of them excuses bullying. Bullying has no place in our courts.”

“Our advice is always to be civil but firm with any bullying judge, opponent or clerk, to seek advice about it and to report it.”