Justice For The Judge

JUSTICE FOR THE JUDGE

Judges Against Justice

This book explores concrete situations in which judges are faced with a legislature and an executive that consciously and systematically discard the ideals of the rule of law. It revolves around three basic questions: What happen when states become oppressive and the judiciary contributes to the oppression? How can we, from a legal point of view, evaluate the actions of judges who contribute to oppression? And, thirdly, how can we understand their participation from a moral point of view and support their inclination to resist?

Mr Justice McCardie (1869-1933)

According to the Law Journal in 1932, ‘No present-day figure on the Bench is of greater interest than Mr Justice McCardie’. A High Court Judge from 1916 to 1933, no twentieth-century judge was more conspicuous or controversial. To his critics, he was a ‘rogue judge’ whose headline-hitting pronouncements often angered his fellow judges, called down the ire of the Churches, provoked calls in Parliament for his removal and earned a public rebuke from the Prime Minister. To his admirers, he was ‘a Crusader on the Bench’, a pioneer who denounced outdated laws, strove to make the law meet the needs of modern society and boldly championed women’s causes, birth control and abortion. The Law Quarterly Review described him as ‘one of the most interesting men in the history of the English Bench.’