Overnight I received the sad news that my friend Raoul Neave collapsed in court. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, get well soon.
Our President’s brother, Mark Sainsbury, is a co-director and leading ambassador for Men's Health Week. We have permission to republish his essay on Men’s Health. Although man-centric, replace the gender with ‘Judge’ and the observations over the lack of care of ourselves in this harsh service of the law still apply.
Up and down the country, JANZ is hearing from judges that are frankly just burnt out and at their wits end seeking some thinking space, some quiet space away from the grind of the job. The justice machine just keeps on hurtling down the track, day after day. We try to push back, try to reorganise, set caps, develop house rules by local solution, but nothing seems to change with the courts demands to do more and more with less and less judicial resources — just cram it in and push it through. “You’ll be right mate. No worries. It’s only a flesh wound. I’m OK, no seriously I have two legs, one will just be fine.”
Wake up you lot. This isn’t a rehearsal! Our leaders can only do so much. We now have wonderful, and it seems well-used, support services freely available to any judge. But that’s the ambulance near the edge of the cliff. The real issue lies systemically in calibrating the intensity of the work we do and allowing enough time for it to be done. Without calibration and time, our brains just won’t stand up to the cognitive overload of urgent, important, instantly demanded, hard, traumatising decision-making. If we want happy and healthy judges then we have to do something about it.
If June was Men’s Health Month, then maybe August should be Judge Health Month. Get that annual medical check-up, commit to regular counselling, buddy up and talk to someone, most of all lean into your independent warrant.
This mightily means, judge, you can say ‘No’. No to an over-capped list, ‘No’ to the urgent application shoved in with just one minute allocated because the trial starts Monday, ‘No’ to multiple days of grinding lists or sentencing days, ’No’ to receiving hopelessly out of time submissions on serious cases where a timetable has been ignored by counsel, ‘No’ politely, gently, compassionately but fairly and firmly delivered.
You can also organise and say ‘Yes’ to local solutions. Simple solutions that, if followed by everyone in your common room, would make life so much easier for all. Try allocating sufficient time to the judge who will inherit the adjourned hearing. 30 minutes for a 106 application, at a minimum, isn’t too much to ask is it? Timetabling for counsel to follow should be routine, shouldn’t it?
And in this issue we look at the next RA determination in September and look to an inflation adjusted backdated increase as a minimum. Read more here.
Introduce Lady Justice Sue Carr here and don’t envy her first task to tackle the UK Civil Court backlog here. That might be just a judicial pain in the neck and we tell you how to relieve that tension here.
And with all the stress of the job perhaps you might enjoy a good read here or consider the best films of ’23 so far here. And yes it's official, taking that afternoon nap before the 2:15 resumption is just the bee's knees for your brain health here.
JANZ posted its first IAJ study commission report this month considering the impact of remote proceedings, we attended an AJOA meeting, remotely, and yes the Australians are coming in October 5-8 at the Pullman Auckland for their annual meeting. First time in 25 years they have met away from home. Headlined by 3 chief justices — ours, theirs, and the newly appointed Kiwi CJ of their federal High Court. You can find the full programme and registration here. Don’t forget, JANZ will reimburse half the cost of your registration or social function event tickets. So come, on sign up!
August will be a big month. JANZ has agreed to sponsor the Auckland combined courts function. An email with confirmed dates will be sent out soon. Please join this gathering.
Ka kite!
Gerard