I was heartened this week to see a leading law figure call for the judiciary to speak out when they see something wrong with the legal system.
Lord Justice Wall suggested “the time has come” to end the reluctance to speak out, but instead to do so “loud and clear”. He did though fire a warning about straying too far into politics.
I fail to see what is wrongly political about senior specialists in law giving the benefit of their knowledge on how things are working – or not as the case may be. Who is better placed to comment then them? Certainly not the assorted politicians and junior ministers who shuffle through the Government posts relating to our industry.
Lord Justice Wall – a Court of Appeal judge – was speaking at the Association of Children conference. It has long been established in law that the needs of a child are the “first and paramount consideration”. Surely that outweighs any old fashioned ideas that the Judiciary does not comment? It should.
I believe more leading judges should “come off the bench” and speak up to help get something done about the flaws in the family law system which are seeing fewer practitioners take on more cases in an underfunded but highly complex area of law.
And, in the lower echelons, we should also be making a noise about the injustice and inherent flaws in the system we are bound to. How else will we get anything done about it?
Andrew Woolley
Family law specialist