Judges should trust barristers more instead of micro-managing cases, says Andrew Langdon QC, Chair of the Bar.
Writing for NLJ this week, Langdon laments the culture of ‘close case management’ and its effect on ‘individual responsibility’.
‘Generations of judicial enthusiasm for intervening in an adversarial system has become the norm and the spoon-feeding of advocates by the court has come home to roost,’ he says.
‘Before the days of active case management and the plethora of form filling and checklists, barristers necessarily had to think more for themselves… Cases would not routinely be listed for preliminary hearings to work through checklists. They were only listed at the instigation of the parties if, as was rare amongst the best of them, they discovered that they could not agree… judges trusted them.’
Langdon concludes that judges could encourage advocates to take more responsibility for their actions by giving them more room.
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