Courts: Poor state of repair
More than one in 10 of salaried judges have been bullied in the two years, double the figure for fee-paid judges, research commissioned by the judiciary has found.
The fourth Judicial Attitude Survey (JAS) also revealed that only 8% of salaried judges and 14% of fee-paid judges felt valued by the government.
Researchers at the UCL Judicial Institute, led by Professor Cheryl Thomas KC, asked judges for the first time whether they had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in their role in the previous two years.
Only 4% of salaried judges and 1% of fee-paid said they had experienced discrimination, and 5% of salaried judges and 4% of fee-paid harassment.
However, 11% of salaried and 5% of fee-paid judges reported being bullied.
The leading source of bullying for salaried judges was ‘my leadership judge’ (31%), followed by a ‘judicial office holder at my court’ (27%) and a ‘more senior office holder’ (22%).
They were followed by litigants (16%), counsel (9%), a judge from another court or a civil servant (6%), a solicitor (3%) and a politician (1%).
The pattern was different for fee-paid judges, who were most likely to have been bullied by another judge at their court (28%), a more senior judge (24%) or their leadership judge (14%).
The survey was carried out last year and followed earlier polls in 2020, 2016 and 2014. The latest was the first to cover all fee-paid judges.
Response rates ranged from 99% of salaried and 91% of fee-paid judges in the courts, to 67% of fee-paid judges in the courts and 53% in the tribunals.
Salaried judges felt least valued by the government. The proportion feeling valued, 8%, was lower even than the 12% who felt valued by the media.
This contrasted with the two-thirds who felt valued by the public and 57% by the senior judiciary.
This loss of respect by government was the change in the judiciary that concerned judges the most.
The judges most likely to say they were considering leaving the judiciary early, in the next five years, were senior circuit judges (54%), circuit judges (48%), Upper Tribunal judges (48%) and district judges in the county court (47%).
The factors most likely to prompt them to leave were an increase in workload (75%), reduction in pension benefits (73%) and limits on pay awards (72%).
Almost two-thirds (64%) of salaried judges said working conditions were worse in 2022 than two years before, a much bigger proportion than fee-paid office holders (37%).
Most salaried judges said maintenance at their court or tribunal was poor or unacceptable, and they had also experienced a “loss of net earnings” over the last two years.
However, a large majority of salaried judges (86%) and fee-paid judges (84%) said they felt a “strong personal attachment” to being a member of the judiciary. Even higher proportions felt they were providing an important service to society.
A majority of salaried judges (54%) said remote hearings had a negative impact on the way parties behaved, with only 5% believing they had a positive impact. Half of salaried judges (50%) said they had a negative impact on the quality of advocacy, with only 3% believing they had a positive impact.
Fee-paid judges were more positive about remote hearings, with 28% saying they believed they had a negative impact on the way the parties behaved and a similar proportion on the quality of advocacy.
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