The survey, conducted 18 months ago, asked judges ‘expressly about behaviour that was inappropriate of all sorts,’ Lord Burnett said last week during his annual press conference. The results of subsequent research that was carried out, the Judicial Attitude Survey, will be published ‘in a few months’ time’.
Meanwhile, the judiciary is training ‘leadership judges’ and will start training for all salaried judges later this year.
Lord Burnett said he had not yet considered in detail a letter from Stuart Fegan, senior organiser at the GMB trade union, which recently set up a judges’ branch. The letter stated wellbeing initiatives advertised internally were ‘at best tokenistic’ and ‘a significant number of judges have reported feeling suicidal because of treatment at work, particularly on the Midlands circuit where we have many GMB judges seeking advice’.
