I found this article called 'Wigs, Coifs, and Other Idiosyncrasies of English Judicial Attire', written by a Professor of Law at the Yeshiva University (New York) in 1999. I bet he'd be pleased to know about the new Star Trek uniform. Here's an extract:
Except for some members of the clergy and practitioners of a few of the more exotic forms of show business, judges are the only people in America who, irrespective of gender, are expected to carry out their primary duties while wearing a dress. While business suits may well be worn beneath the judicial costume, the whole point of the judicial dress (or robe, if you insist) is that it hides whatever the judge is wearing underneath. Because of the robe, a judge wearing tank top and cutoffs wields just as much authority behind the bench as one dressed by Brooks Brothers (at least as long as that judge stays behind the bench). When it comes to exercising judicial power, in short, the business suit is superfluous. It's the dress that counts.
The silliness of American judicial garb, however, pales into insignificance when compared to the truly ridiculous outfits their brethren and sistren in England are expected to wear. While judicial robes in America at least have the minor virtues of being cheap and easy to clean, the English judges of the higher ranks are saddled (literally) with enormous horsehair wigs that can cost over one thousand pounds and weigh almost that much. They are also expected to wear garish robes trimmed with the carcasses of small woodland creatures. The English judicial costume is said to be itchy, unhygienic, and uncomfortable. It also doesn't always smell terrific.
The absurdity of English judicial attire has been a matter of note for quite some time. That most stylish of Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, said that English judges looked to him "like mice peeping out of oakum." Jefferson was not much of an Anglophile. A few decades later, another budding revolutionary, Alexander Herzen, described the English judges as "wearing a fur coat and something like a woman's dressing gown."
7 comments:
There are a lot of things our American colleagues can teach us about, but I don't think courtroom attire or conduct are amongst them! Their advocacy is so much paper-based, I'm sure they just don't "get" the court room thing.
I'm all in favour of gowns/collars. And wigs for judges (esp in crim cases, in that case wigs for all).
Clearly the author has never experienced the lust and longing that a Barrister in full wig and gown can provoke in young impressionable barristers-to-be. *sigh*
We are slightly more modest up here in Scotland (with judges attire), but I like all the pomp that goes along with being a judge in the UK. It makes it, well, more interesting!
Mel, I'm in favour of traditional cout dress too. It makes judges look more authoritative and it's just cool! :)
CLG, absolutely. They obviously need more English court drama in America!
Oliver, do they still wear red and white robes with red crosses on them?
Well, according to this (a bit inaccurate) website, Canadian Supreme Court Judge looks like a Santa Claus.
1. I'd love to know his source for the wearing of wigs eliminating roundhead and royalist divisions - especially given that the usual picture of Richard Cromwell shows him with beautiful flowing locks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cromwell). Wigs were adopted as being more hygienic as it means people could shave their heads and so remove one source of lice.
2. The origins of barristers wearing black, sombre gowns is in dispute - though it is generally agreed that we've never quite left our mourning for one or another monarch (http://www.victorialaw.org.au/books/Wigs_and_Gowns.htm)
Sorry, I get grumpy with armchair historians - and as I noticed these two straight off, I can be damned sure there are others.
That said, I can certainly see the benefit in wigs and gowns creating uniform anonymity and authority regardless of any other features of the individual barrister.
That, and I like the tradition.
it's theatre and punters feel short-changed if the costumes don't make them go 'oooh'.
I prefer traditional court dress - there is something cheap and nasty about the new Star Trek look for judges - but why are we surprised?arguably this present Government has reduced the law in this country to an episode of the latter; judicial clothing simply has to follow if the farce is to continue! ( I have visions of barristers wearing sponsorship across their backs in the manner of " eat at Joes 24/7" or some such - this would of course be a flashing neonsign in the case of silks and wet cardboard in the case of pupils)
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