There is an apocalyptic track on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album that is about the end of the world; it expresses the chaos and sentiment when an alien comes to Earth and tells us we’ve got five years. That’s it.
And it makes me wonder: What would it be like if Ziggy Stardust came to Earth and told us judges we’ve only got five years? What if we knew that there was absolutely nothing we could do or not do that would change it — that in five years our courts would be gone, prisons empty, registries closed, chambers boarded up. What if none of our efforts were put into trying to survive the next list, trial, mediation, case flow management, or row upon row of box work or commercial claims?
Just for a minute, imagine with me what that kind of freedom would look like!
Well, for one, if the game is over, we would have no reason to try and justify taking our time to connect with our cases and the people in them, or angst over discounting properly for a person's difference found in a report about their personal journey into our courtroom. And maybe, just maybe, for once say to litigants and their lawyers what we really feel they need to hear.
We’d have no reason to keep buildings we can’t repair or build more prisons we could never fill. Here’s something: We could stop kissing up to toxic ignorant points of view about what we do and how many times we do it and start connecting with the people before us not counting their events in the justice system by the minute. We could cancel every single committee meeting and spend time with each other about what’s best to do. We could serve more.
Ministry speak would be immediately banned — no cascading, decanting, stakeholders, or sectorial engagement. Oh what freedom that would be! We would have no sacred cows. Nothing to be defensive about. No reason to be offended. We’d laugh more. We’d cry more. We’d celebrate more. We’d talk more. We’d connect more, and more than once every three years.
But wait a minute, our judicial service is not a rehearsal. None of this need take five years my brothers and sisters. All of it can be done if we just connect and support the things that must endure and matter.
That’s why we have our association. One simple word. Connection.