13. Jul. 2010. – 08:52:44
I`ve been a JP for a while. Unlike many of my colleagues who post their opinions on the Magistrates` Forum I`m not looking for a long [or short] service medal or letters indicating association with a defunct empire when I step down or to be more precise when I am here today and gone tomorrow the day after I hit the biblical time span….if I last that long. I don`t seek self aggrandisement by pondering whether I do or don`t use the J.P. suffix in correspondence . I don`t. Anyway I`m much happier in the anonymous position where most of my friends are not even aware of my judicial status. Judging….to coin a phrase……… from comments I hear in the retiring room I certainly don`t want to appear to others a font of all knowledge criminal and a source of advice on matters not my business.
But with an unprecedented increase in my bench`s intake over the last couple of years more and more of my newer colleagues are expecting words of wisdom when they ask for advice or information. And truth be told I`m finding that increasingly most of that advice or information is actually accurate. That certainly is a continuing function of the process of intellectual osmosis which we all hope will see us through before we need somebody to change our nappy.
Last week a colleague posited a question I should put on her [and our] behalf to a trial witness. After a couple of seconds I decided it was not appropriate and told her so with reasons. She accepted my decision. At the post court review I brought this question up with our very senior legal adviser for his opinion as to whether I had acted correctly or perhaps had been over cautious. Without any hesitation he replied and gave succinct reasons why the question might have upset the level playing field over which we had presided. My colleague chipped in with, “A Brownie point for you Mr Chairman”, and I haven`t even been a boy scout.
Oh that we had the wisdom of age and body of youth……..now who said that?
But with an unprecedented increase in my bench`s intake over the last couple of years more and more of my newer colleagues are expecting words of wisdom when they ask for advice or information. And truth be told I`m finding that increasingly most of that advice or information is actually accurate. That certainly is a continuing function of the process of intellectual osmosis which we all hope will see us through before we need somebody to change our nappy.
Last week a colleague posited a question I should put on her [and our] behalf to a trial witness. After a couple of seconds I decided it was not appropriate and told her so with reasons. She accepted my decision. At the post court review I brought this question up with our very senior legal adviser for his opinion as to whether I had acted correctly or perhaps had been over cautious. Without any hesitation he replied and gave succinct reasons why the question might have upset the level playing field over which we had presided. My colleague chipped in with, “A Brownie point for you Mr Chairman”, and I haven`t even been a boy scout.
Oh that we had the wisdom of age and body of youth……..now who said that?
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