25 June 2021
Has the wig had its day in court? It’s a debate that’s raged for years but tradition has always triumphed
Writing in NLJ this week, Mark Pawlowski, barrister and professor of law, University of Greenwich, sets out his argument for getting rid.
Wigs were fashionable in 1635 but this is 2021, so why are barristers still required to wear this itchy headgear? Pawlowski sets out the for and against argument―dignity, formality, anonymity.
He writes of the ‘notion that court dress represents a language of its own in terms of a continuity of development of responsibility. In other words, wigs and robes clothe the individual with the corporate authority of the law’.
He submits, however, that these advantages could be obtained without the need to wear a wig.
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