Ten weeks holiday a year?

Really? 

There are some media reports suggesting that some judges in Downunder get ten weeks holiday a year. Naturally there have been squeals of complaint about this, especially about those judges who work in the area of Family Law.

Well, let me tell you that those judges do not get ten weeks holiday a year. They might be "on leave" but I can assure you that, for the most part, they will be working. 

They will be working on things that most of us know nothing about. It is a common misconception that judges "just sit there and listen". They don't. There is a lot more to it than that.  It isn't a job I would want. 

Judges need to know the law. They need to know it intimately. It isn't simply a matter of "listening to the evidence" or "hearing a barrister argue a case".  They need to know the legislation and the way it has been applied to previous cases - and they need to know how both those things fit into the overall context and principles of the law.  Reading legislation is not straightforward. (Writing it is even more difficult.) 

When I went to Law School we had what were known as "case books" for each subject. They were fat books filled with references to cases we needed to know about, the cases which form the basis of our current legal system - such as Donoghue v Stevenson which is concerned with negligence but whose origins go much further back.

One of the exercises we were set in a subject called "Legal Writing and Research" was to trace back a case as far as we could. It meant reading a judgement we were given at random and, using the cases quoted in it, go backwards and read those judgements and then the judgments on which those judgments were based and so on. We did it in pairs and my late friend C.... and I eventually found ourselves back in the late 14thC.  Yes, I suspect that we persisted a little longer than the younger students - and also that the tutor knew we would find the material. 

It took time to find those early cases but C... and I were able to learn a great deal from it.

Judges won't do that sort of thing of course. They know the law far better than we did then or I do now. They often have "associates" who will do a lot of the research for them.  Knowing how to do the research though is important. It is also vital to know the recent case law. What has happened? How was that word or phrase interpreted? Has there been an appeal? What was said in this case or that case?

Judges need to know all of this. Their associates may have done some of the work but judges have to do more.  At the law school I attended we sometimes saw judges at work on a constitutional case with members of staff.  There is a lot more material available on line now but I remember one occasion when the staff room was littered with piles of books and papers as two members of the judiciary, their associates, members of the staff and others were wrangling over a piece of maritime law. In the end it wasn't even used but it later formed a background to their understanding of one of the most important cases ever to go before the High Court - Mabo v Qld.

 Judges work very long hours when they are "at work" but they also work when they are not there. Any judge worthy of his or her pay packet will spend a great deal of his or her "ten weeks holiday" reading and researching. They need to be up to date. They need to know how the law has been applied by others in the most recent cases. 

If they make a mistake or a barrister thinks they have then there can be lengthy and very expensive appeals. Nobody wants that. 

It is why judges don't really have ten weeks holiday a year.