Bench pressing: 'Debating Judicial Appointments in an Age of Diversity'

Are you bench-fit? There's a handy 'Am I Ready?' guide on the Judicial Appointments Commission website.

I picked up this tip in Debating Judicial Appointments in an Age of Diversity (Routledge, £115) edited by Graham Gee and Erika Rackley. These essays spotlight key questions, such as the level to which judicial appointments should be political.

And what is merit? Sir Thomas Legg, former Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, writes: 'We appear to owe the concept of merit for public appointments originally to the Chinese Civil Service in the Qin and Han dynasties.' I would like a whole chapter on this, with sample exam papers and ink drawings of Confucius, but it is not to be.

Legg expresses doubt about lay members of selection committees: 'For many reasons, lay members are often likely to defer to their judicial colleagues in these decisions.' This is countered by Jenny Rowe, the first Chief Executive of the Supreme Court: 'The judges were always very respectful of these levels of expertise and welcomed the perspective offered by lay members...There was no shortage of lively discussion and debate, and no question at all of the lay members being supine.'

Sketch of Christopher Allan at Judicial Images workshop

Uncritically, I would say that the best bit of the book is Appendix IV - included in the free preview on Amazon - which is about how I came to draw the cover illustration. I'm indebted to Christopher Allan, Court and Ceremonial Manager at Ede & Ravenscroft, for giving me a close-up view of the robes in his care, groomed like champion race-horses.

If you think you're hard enough for the bench, then - even without issues of diversity - you'll be interested in the matters this book raises.

Coda: if you prefer the soft and fluffy, may I recommend The Supreme Court: A Guide for Bears.

Cover, book, judge

You can't judge a book by its cover but I'm covering a book with judges' untenanted robes.

The editors say they'd like a cover picture based on this sketch, but without the man from Ede & Ravenscroft (the temple of judicial costume). He is Christopher Allan, the company's Court and Ceremonial Manager, here addressing an academic workshop organised by judicialimages.org.

I mull over a few other ideas, including this next one, but we stick with the robes.

I need to inspect ceremonial garb for the Court of Appeal (black and gold), High Court (red) and Circuit Bench (mauve and black), so I head for the Chancery Lane emporium. As I enter, a QC sprinkled with Supreme Court stardust is leaving; he beams into the sunshine, a happy man.

Chris kindly sets up the robes on dummies. They are in beautiful condition, just raring to go - unlike the peer's robe awaiting repair in the basement, with grubby ermine and ripped hem, which looks as if it saw action at the coronation of Queen Victoria.

Back home, I do a rough sketch in ink, felt tips and waterbrush.
















Then I do another version in ink and watercolour.

Then, because I would be happier if the robes were inhabited and moving around, I do a faster degraded version in ink...

...followed by some ink splodges.

The title lettering might need a dark background so I proffer a rough ink and wash drawing of figured damask, based on but not slavishly copied from the Court of Appeal robe.

Debating Judicial Appointments in an Age of Diversity, edited by Professor Graham Gee and Professor Erika Rackley, is published by Routledge in 2017.  

And if you aren't qualified for an Ede & Ravenscroft uniform, don't despair. My party outfit here is assembled from H&M, a jumble sale, Portobello, Oxfam, Claire's, Rigby & Peller and a gift from the law firm Simmons & Simmons' Black Museum of Passing Off.

Work sheet:

Judicial images: costume drama

A cluster of shop dummies are modelling sumptuous judicial robes not normally found together in the wild. Although headless, they appear to be engaged in conversation.

Christopher Allan, Court and Ceremonial Manager of Ede & Ravenscroft, reserves Jeevesian distaste for the mean-spirited modern civil robes designed by a committee.

New male civil robe

I'm at a Judicialimages.org workshop run by Professor Leslie Moran from Birkbeck and Professor Linda Mulcahy from the LSE.

The robes are a bargain. You wouldn't get a decent bespoke suit for four grand, the price of a QC's ceremonial outfit built on Tudor lines. Nor could you buy a couture evening dress with as much gold on it as a Lord Chancellor's robe for a mere £28k.

The audience are invited to try on wigs and gowns. I hold back as they would not fit me in more ways than one, but others succumb to the magic of silk damask, and begin to bear themselves with ritual grace.

These are outfits which, Mr Allan suggests, would get you arrested if you wore them on the Tube late at night.

'I'm surprised to hear them described as kinky,' muses Professor Alan Read of King's College, London, who has just shown us a photo of himself in a jailbait Fauntleroy outfit and long blond locks in the school production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

Context is all. And you can't do it on the cheap. If the provenance of your party gear (right) is H&M, a jumble sale, Portobello, Oxfam and Claire's, then no amount of Rigby & Peller will get you back on track.

Coda: there will be an exhibition of my Supreme Court drawings at Pinsent Masons' Crown Place offices from 14 November until early January.