Daily Diary

You rang, m'lud?

Posted 13/04/2007 by The Daily Diary

It’s official: judges are out of touch – with each other, anyway. Which is why a new telephone helpline is being set up to help brow-beaten benchers combat the emotional stress of listening to lawyers bicker endlessly over which comma was in the wrong place on what contract.

The helpline, which is launched this month and will apparently be manned 24 hours a day in case any of the old codgers can stay awake past 4pm, was announced by the Lord Chief Justice at some speech or other before Easter.

Areas for concern apparently include an increasing workload and administrative burden, criticism from the media (sorry guys) and, intriguingly, an eruption of mid-life crises – implying that most current judges are going to live until they are 160.

Either way, judging by Lord Philips’ own stark warning over the “recurrent crises” likely to result from the Government’s back-of-a-napkin plans for the new Ministry of Justice, the helpline seems sure to have at least one regular caller to contend with.

A member of the judiciary operates his new-fangled horseless telegraph