With the legal agenda dominated by the rights of audience review and civil court reform, and with another high profile year for the criminal courts, the Firm is once again undertaking research to identify Scotland’s most capable High Court judge.

We will shortly be conducting a confidential survey of all of Scotland’s advocates and solicitor advocates to assess the clinical on the job skills of all 33 full time Senators of the College of Justice, in what we hope you’ll agree is a vital form of public and peer accountability in a modern, democratic society.

The research has been designed to recognise the particular skills applied by judges carrying out what we recognise is an extraordinarily difficult and demanding job. As the only independent voice of the legal profession in Scotland, the Firm is ideally placed to carry out this research in a just and fair manner, and after publishing our findings on the two previous occasions that we have carried out this exercise, we know that the conclusions of the research are exceptionally accurate.

This year, we are expanding our coverage to place the conclusions of our survey fully in the context of the extraordinarily challenging, nuanced and significant work in the administration of justice undertaken by the Lords and Ladies of the bench, often under difficult circumstances.

Daily newspapers focus narrowly on a very few exceptional cases, and concentrate only on criticising judges or ‘lenient’ sentences, if they even cover judicial work at all. The Firm review will highlight the judges that are working best in Scotland, and emphasise the good work that is done each day by them., by consulting the respected practitioners with daily contact with their Lordships and Ladyships. Their views will count in our objective assessment of the continuing effectiveness of the Scottish judiciary during this period of transition.

The purpose of this exercise is to assess the members of the judiciary and apply the only external accountability to their work that can be achieved. There can be no responsibility more demanding than that of a Supreme Court judge, whose decision making and skill will directly impact on the lives of those affected by matters before the Court. We recognise that judges have an incredibly challenging task to undertake every working day of their lives, and we also acknowledge that the interests of justice demand that each man and woman appointed to the bench meets the highest standards of judicial excellence.

The Judicial Appointments Board has had a wider say on the membership of the judiciary since our last poll in 2006, and there have been some significant arrivals and departures. This time we are taking a far wider view in our analysis of the judiciary and will publish our findings in a special edition of The Firm during 2010, which will encompass aspects of judicial training, the selection process and the efficacy of the Judicial Appointments Board, and the process of accountability of judges to the Lord Justice General. We will be compiling the most complete picture of the judicial process in Scotland ever published, with the talents of the Senators of the College of Justice at the heart of it.

The Firm’s survey methods have been approved by MRUK and will assess:
1. Judge’s attitude toward counsel
2. Judge’s attitude towards witnesses
3. Judicial compassion
4. Appropriateness of sentences
5. Courtesy in the Court
6. Efficiency in court
7. Clarity of communications in court
8. Clarity of written judgements
9. Knowledge of the law
10. Quality of decisions

The Judges of the supreme courts are the cream of legal expertise, and this exercise accepts that as a starting point, and that their competence and legal grounding is not up for debate. No one being rated in this analysis should have anything to fear from an honest assessment of their skills carried out in good faith, by fellow professionals who are best placed to appreciate the subtleties and pressures of the role undertaken by judges.

The work of a judge is carried out in public, but its effectiveness is often masked by the perceived justice or otherwise of the outcomes of a very few high profile cases, in coverage which does not give the public a full picture of the skills of the judge throughout a case, or throughout their career. The Firm fully supports the judiciary, and believes that their special positioning outside the democratic process, and their separation from the vagaries of a plebiscite should be preserved to ensure their independence. Their uniquely protected status requires the highest degree of public scrutiny and accountability that we believe would be utterly absent from public life without this process.