There is a need to recruit ‘an unprecedented number of judges at all levels and across all jurisdictions’ in the next two years, the Lord Chief Justice has warned.
Lord Burnett, speaking last week at his annual press conference, said there was a shortage of judges, with 15 unfilled vacancies at the High Court and, increasingly, vacancies on the Circuit Bench.
‘We are running the High Court at much less than full complement and that means the judges who are in post are having to work much harder, they are having to do more cases and we are also having to deploy deputy judges to deal with some cases which ideally it would be better to have a full-time judge,’ he said.
Lord Burnett said the Senior Salaries Review Body had made it clear the problem stemmed from technical changes to the judicial pension schemes. He hoped the government will respond on the issue within the next few months.
Asked why £180,000 per year plus a good pension wasn’t enough for judges, Lord Burnett said the judiciary had to fix its recruitment problem, that a functioning court service was vital for inward investment and that the international reputation of the judiciary attracted litigants from abroad, generating billions of pounds for the legal profession.
Lord Burnett said he expected a ‘short term increase in work related to Brexit, whatever happens, particularly in the administrative court and in some of the business and property courts.’ However, he said he was confident the increase could be managed.
He also lamented the ‘terrible state’ of some criminal court buildings: ‘Water coming through the ceilings, for example; jurors having to wear hats and coats in the winter; lifts that do not work; air conditioning that does not work so that courts have to be stopped in the heat of the summer.’
