Law Weblog

High Court Judge referred to the Office for Judicial Complaints

Wednesday 18 July 2007 at 6:22 am | In News | Post Comment

For the first time the Lord Chief Justice has taken steps to initiate disciplinary action against a High Court judge by referring the judge to the Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC), which was set up last year under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

It is a first step towards possible disciplinary proceedings against the judge. It could lead to a reprimand or even to a recommendation to ask Parliament to remove him. A High Court Judge can only be removed from office by parliament.

Mr Justice Peter Smith (the judge who presided over the “Da Vinci Code” case) was slammed by the Court of Appeal for marring his judgment with his personal feelings.

[In the “Da Vinci Code” case the judge wrote a coded message, thought to have been unprecedented in court judgments].

The case that has provoked the referral to the OJC came after Peter Smith J had been in negotiations to join a law firm called Addleshaws. The negotiations broke down.

Smith said that he had been angered by his treatment which had wasted his time. The Court of Appeal found that Smith had “animosity” towards the firm.

Then a case was due to be heard before Peter Smith J involving a party who was head of a department at Addleshaws. An application to the judge for him to stand down (be recused) was denied by him.

The Court of Appeal ruled that instead of testing the evidence of the witness the judge cross examined him in a way that a “defence advocate” would.

The Court of Appeal ruled that Peter Smith J’s actions were “wholly inappropriate” especially in relation to the cross-examination and that the court was “quite satisfied that the judge should have recused himself”.

The court also held that Smith’s attitude towards Addleshaws, about which the firm was complaining, “rose directly from the judge’s private affairs”.

The conduct of the hearing, it ruled, underlined the fact that he had been “personally involved”.