Scraping the judicial barrel

When my son turned three, I thought I’d up the ante and, in addition to throwing his annual birthday party, I threw in a magician.

He wasn’t even a proper magician because I found the one who was fashionable and popular at the time rather annoying and discriminatory in the way he dished out his balloons and his magic. So I settled for a clown of sorts who promised 25 children one hour’s entertainment for the princely sum of €115.

Later that evening, when I was still reeling from all the preparation, hype and clowning around (children’s parties age you by about 10 years), I gave my aunt the low-down over the telephone.

I have the sort of relationship with my aunt and my mother where we feel the need to make nocturnal telephone calls and share useless bits of information, mainly to see if anything novel and exciting has happened since the day before. I will never forget her reaction when I got round to the financial minutiae and told her what the clown had charged.

She called out to my uncle, who was probably locked away in his study upstairs, immersed in a sea of papers, sifting through evidence, working on a judgment which in all likelihood he had started the day before and was not likely to finish any time soon.

When she finally got his attention she told him what she thought about his career choice, chastising him for all those years he wasted writing judgments which might have been put to better use (certainly would have been more lucrative) had he learned how to turn balloons into swords or octopi.

My aunt is quite easily the funniest member of our family. She has that invaluable ability to make even the most mundane story interesting. Hearing her joke about how her husband ought to have become a clown, instead of a judge, is definitely my personal favourite among her vast repertoire.

A judge’s basic salary works out at about €38,000 a year, give or take. This would describe the situation more accurately – because once one adds their benefits and subtracts tax and national insurance, their take-home pay is less than €3,000 a month. This to occupy one of the most prestigious positions in the country.

Well, talk about the price you pay for prestige because these people certainly aren’t being paid for it. After seven years of law school and at least another 12 practising, judges are eligible to be called to service.

The 12-year rule is rarely applied and, in effect, most are appointed to the bench after drawn-out careers as magistrates or lawyers. Of course, judges who are appointed after 25 year-long successful legal careers have usually amassed small fortunes in between.

Their decision to hit the bench aged 55 is motivated by something other than a career path. It’s a matter of honour, prestige and their financial predicament can hardly be equated with those who are promoted to the bench after a lifetime serving as magistrates. Because if judges are underpaid, you’d better believe that magistrates are even more so.

The responsibility that comes with the territory is, of course, massive, to say nothing of the workload and pressure. There is only one thing worse than having to deal with your problems,and that is being saddled withsomeone else’s.

That pretty much sums up the life of an adjudicator. Judges and magistrates have to sit through hours of drama – from petty and ugly domestics to murders, drug cases, bad neighbourly relations to commercial disputes involving huge debts, injunctions and warrants.

Sittings start early in the morning and continue late into the afternoon. Juries are ‘after eight’ affairs and seem to last forever.

And the worst part, of course, is that once you are home, you don’t get to put your feet up and watch The Simpsons. You have homework. Lots of it. Almost everything that is heard in the morning needs to find its way into a motivated judgement substantiated with case law, research and foreign expertise.

So yes, although the judiciary get to lord it over you, play chess with your life, and although the profession seems to bestow on those who exercise it an almost godlike dimension, there is absolutely nothing divine about the salaries these people receive.

Moreover, the profession comes at an even greater price – complete withdrawal from society. You see, because they get to tell us what to do and how to do it, we don’t really want them hanging around with the rest of us, committing sins of the flesh. Which makes the life of a judge a pretty lonely business.

You’d think that because these people have to work very hard and never get to play hard, at least they’d be compensated handsomely for their hard-earned efforts and virtual isolation from life’s lighter moments.

It’s all very well to talk about the importance of judges being able to dispense justice with serenity and peace of mind. But how serene can you be when you’re clearly overworked, underpaid and undervalued. It’s truly the biggest injustice of them all. When you pay peanuts you risk monkeys – the government should keep that thought warm.

You’d imagine there was some ray of light at the end of the dark judicial tunnel but you’re not going to believe what sort of pension awaits. It’s actually embarrassing – it’s the sort of hand-out you’d be tempted to refuse and pass on to a charity. Some €860 a month will be yours until you die in return for giving up your life to the bench.

I really can’t imagine what sort of qualifications one needs to be the CEO of ARMS Ltd. I hardly imagine the man personally takes it upon himself to read meters, input data or stuff bills into envelopes. But, whatever he does or doesn’t do earns him a cool €27,000 more than an ordinary judge and about €20,000 more than the Chief Justice.

Although, given the choice, I think I’d sooner join the circus or blow balloons for a living.