Policy Implications of Virtual Work, edited by Pamela Meil and Vassil Kirov. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017, 301 pp., ISBN: 9783319520568, £66.99, hardback.
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12288 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12311
56:2 June 2018 0007–1080 pp. 442–460
BOOK REVIEWS
Being a Judge in the Modern World, edited by JeremyCooper. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2017, 240 pp.,ISBN: 9780198796602, Price £24.99, paperback
In December 2017, the former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was found guilty
of insulting the judiciary and fined £83,000 and sentenced to three years in jail.1He
and 25 co-defendants were accused of making inciteful and contemptuous statements
about the judiciary in the media. The court orderedall defendants to pay 1 m Egyptian
pounds to the Judges Club, an unocial bodyin charge of dealing with judicial aairs.
Being a judge in the modern world is clearly not the same all overthe world — there
was no such sanction when in November 2017 the Daily Mail branded the three UK
High Court judges who decided the Miller2case ‘enemies of the people’.3However,
while the British media mayattack the judiciary with impunity, judges will be punished
for speaking out of turn: the case brought by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) against
Recorder PeterHerbert4suggests that judges enjoy no freedom of speech. Further, the
Court of Appeal recentlyconfirmed that as judges are not ‘workers’ but ‘oce-holders’,
they are not protected by whistle-blowinglegislation in employment law.5
The limited international perspective is one aspect of this highly readable volume
that may be frustrating for readers of an international journal such as this. Apart
from one chapter, all of the contributions are on the United Kingdom. The essays are
drawn from lectures delivered around the United Kingdom as part of an academic
programme organized by the Judicial College, the ocial judicial training body
formally established in 2011. However, each lecture touches upon topics that are
likely to aect judges and the court system worldwide, issues arising from political
and systemic to substantive and procedural concerns — the impact of austerity
projects, from unrepresented parties to court closures; social media and privacy; the
incorporation of new public management indicators; management of a constantly
rising workload; the internet and digitalization in urban and rural areas; as well as
legal regulation of complex areas such as cybercrime and artificial intelligence. The
contributions are thematically organized, largely unedited and not updated, the hope
being to provide the reader with a ‘sense of intellectual freewheelingexcitement’.
There are 15 essaysin total from 11 contributors (Lord Thomas is the author of three
essays and Lord Justice Ryder writes two). Eleven are written by sitting senior judges
and 12 are written by whitemen. Gender diversity is provided courtesy of Lady Brenda
Hale (currently 1st female President of the UK Supreme Court), Mrs Justice Desiree
Bernard from Guyana(1st female judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice) and former
Liberty Director,Baroness Shami Chakrabarti. The latter two also impart some racial
diversity to the project. Chakrabarti, alongside Joshua Rozenberg, Alan Rusbridger
and editor Professor JeremyCooper, also provide a non-judicial perspective.
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2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Book Reviews 443
The latter three contributions are informed reflections based upon the significant
interaction that each has had with the judiciary in the course of their public roles in
the voluntary sector and media. They highlight themes at the interface of the judiciary
and society. Chakrabarti considers the consequences of widespread ‘constitutional
illiteracy’ amongst the general public; Rozenberg reflects on the ‘embattled judge’
who has no freedom to respond to attacks by the media (such as the ‘enemies of the
people’ headline); and Rusbridger considers how this interface between unprincipled
press and silent judiciary can become toxic. Given that 80 per cent of the public hold
judges in high esteem (p. 5), a key question is how to deliver justice while responding
to these pressures and maintaining public trust? As judges are called upon to settle
more disputes and chair more public inquiries, in order to be an eective judge, the
boundaries of judicial privilege must be carefully navigated. A prerequisite to eective
navigation is conscious knowledgeof the world.
All chapters will be equally interesting to those interested in the modern judiciary.
FormerChief Justices share their reflections on being a judge — no longer is it a case of
sitting alone in a cloistered room apart fromthe world. The contributions in this book
illustrate just how much being a judge requires interaction with the world. The image
of the robed, impassive‘umpire’ sitting silently hearing counsel is, we are told, ‘far from
the truth’ (p. 35). Judges must be part of the modern world as judges — even without
their robes they must uphold the valuesof the oce: thuswhile economist Vicky Pryce
has been able to resume her careerafter a brief spell of incarceration, Judge Constance
Briscoe will never return to the bench.6
Given its role in employment relations, journal readers may be most interested in
the papers on the reform of the Tribunal system and the delivery of justice.These three
essays, two penned by Lord Ryder, set out a strong vision for the modern judge and
a modern judiciary. The first of the trio is written by Lord Carnwath, first Senior
President of the Tribunals. He sets out to answer basic questions on the judiciary,
its role and procedures, especially the evolution of the tribunal system from a matrix
of many specialist tribunals to a new two-tier hierarchical structure within a unified
system of Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service. Ryder LJ, the current Senior
President of the Tribunals, sets the modernization within the context of Magna Carta
— his tone is urgent, suggesting it was a matter of ‘adapt or die’. As he points
out, judging is much more complex — deciding cases may be the first but is no
longer the last duty of the judge — ‘the judicial power requires more’ especially, for
example, in the face of unrepresented parties. His unequivocal support for a single,
fully digitalized system is informed by the goal to create a ‘seamless’, flexible and
ecient judiciary that delivers better outcomes for users. His vision is for a ‘much
simpler system of justice, with the judiciary atits heart, citizens empowered to access it’
(p. 140).
It is interesting to know that the simplification of structure and oces was a
judge-led project, allowing judges to show their usually hidden more innovative
side. In his reflections, Lord Thomas argues that judges have a duty to actively
engage in reform of judicial governance and not be a passive recipient of procedural
innovations (pp. 31–33). Such rationalization is arguably integral to strengthening
the delivery of justice by a judiciary that is more than simply a provider of services,
but a pillar of democracy. The debate on whether judges provide a service has raged
for almost two decades, in tandem with reform and modernization. In his second
essay on judicial independence, Lord Thomas addresses this topic with gusto: such
conceptions of justice as a public good and judges as service providers are, he argues,
‘fallacious’:
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2018 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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