Judges and Teachers
| Author | R. F. V. Heuston |
| Date | 01 June 1978 |
| Published date | 01 June 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0067205X7800900201 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JUDGES AND TEACHERS
By R. F. V.
HEUSTON*
In this article Professor Heuston reminisces on the distinctive
functions
of
the judge and
of
the teacher
of
law. Each has a
contribution to make and each
is
dependent on the other to a
greater extent than either may be prepared to admit.
My qualifications for writing an article on this topic are that I
started to teach law
at
Oxford thirty years ago almost to the day in
company with
0I1e
whose name
is
not unknown in this context-:-
Zelman Cowen. Ihave been amember of the English and the Irish
Bar
for almost the same length of time and have practised (very briefly)
both in London and in Dublin.
For
about six years Iwas aLay
Magistrate (Justice of the Peace) in Hampshire during the time when
Iwas aProfessor of Law
at
Southampton University. Ihave met
officially
or
on terms of friendship alarge number of judges during
these thirty years, in particular when Iwas amember of the Lord
Chancellor's Law Reform Committee in England and apart-time
member of the Law Reform Commission in Ireland.
Judges and practitioners have always had asomewhat uneasy
relatiol!ship with each other. Nearly fifty years ago Lord Tomlin
noticed the fact in asmall piece of verse which ran:
For
the Dons are
so
hard on the Judges
and the Judges
so
rude to the Dons.
As judges start life
as
practitioners, the problem
is
really an aspect of
the relationship between practitioners and the teachers. Each has a
stereotyped image of the other which the passage of years
or
the
impact of reality does little to diminish. How does the practitioner see
the teacher? The answer
is,
not entirely favourably. When Iwas last
in Australia in 1956, I
was
taken to the High Court, which was then
sitting in Melbourne, by P. D. Phillips Q.C., then aleading practitioner
who also did some part-time teaching at the Law School. He brought
me into the second row from the
Bar
and when Iindicated some doubt
whether Iwas entitled to be there, P. D. Phillips, with ascorching
glance
at
the Bench on which Sir Owen Dixon
was
seated, said:
"Professors can sit anywhere in this Court". Somehow Ido not think
he meant the title of Professor in acomplimentary way. Equally, it
is
noticeable that
at
the
Bar
in London those academic colleagues who
are entitled to practise are careful to drop their academic
titles-
nothing, apparently, puts
off
aclient
so
much
as
the titles "Professor"
or
"Doctor" painted over the door of one's chambers. Ithink the
*Regius Professor of Laws, Trinity College, University
of
Dublin.
135
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