Eleven magistrates, two court judges and four tribunal judges had to be removed from office last year for misconduct, according to the annual Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) report.
Of these dismissals, 12 were serious enough to be dealt with under the summary process, where the Lord Chancellor or Lord Chief Justice can remove an office holder without further investigation due to circumstances such as a criminal conviction, bankruptcy or failure to meet sitting requirements without reasonable excuse.
Formal reprimands were given to five magistrates, two court judges, one tribunal judge and one coroner.
In total, 39 judges were subject to disciplinary action last year, compared to 42 in the previous year. The JCIO received roughly the same number of complaints as last year, 2,147 to 2,126 the previous year. The JCIO report covers 23,000 full or part-time judges.
Many members of the public continue to mistake the JCIO as an alternative means of appeal, submitting complaints about judicial decisions and case management, the report said.
The JCIO’s performance in terms of meeting its deadlines for responding to complaints suffered last year due to ‘significant staffing shortages’.
It met its aim of responding to complaints within two days in only 89% of cases, having set a target of doing so in 95% of cases; and of issuing a substantive response within 15 working days in only 66% of cases, somewhat short of its target of doing so in 85% of cases. It attributed this drop in performance to ‘significant staffing shortages’.
The Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman upheld or partially upheld seven complaints about the JCIO’s handling of complaints (less than 1% of the JCIO’s overall caseload).
