Law profession debates formal court wear

Law Profession In Debate of Reintroduction of Formal Court Wear LawFuel.co.nz

LawFuel reports that the legal profession is in a vigorous debate over the Law Society’s suggestion that the profession adopt the wearing of gowns for trials of indictable offences in the District Courts. The suggestion from Law Society president Jonathan Temm has lead to a spirited debate among QCs and senior lawyers around the country, as reported in this week’s “Law News” newspaper.

In a recent issue of the official NZLS publication LawTalk, NZLS President Jonathan Temm listed a number of initiatives the society had prepared “which aim to improve the minimum standards of performance of lawyers, particularly before the Courts".

“The discussion on the wearing of gowns in the indictable criminal division of the District Courts sits alongside these initiatives,” said Mr Temm. Wigs and gowns were dispensed with following considerable debate in the profession many years ago and the reintroduction of gowns at a formal level is something that arouses considerable professional passion. Mr Temm’s statement was followed by a widely circulated email headed, “Gowns to impress the masses” written by Robert Lithgow QC of Wellington which read:

“I wish to email my bewilderment at the NZLS idea that, of all the things needed to lift the image of the profession, the introduction of gowns to the District Court jury trials is the thing.

This apparently is an initiative in turn from the Attorney-General. The Wellington Branch of NZLS has endorsed it but I am unaware of their mandate for this. In my view gowns, and for that matter scarlet robes, wigs and white gloves at so-called formal occasions, should all be back in the dress-up box. These garments have a history as cruel and as duplicitous as they ever had highminded and respectable.

These gowns are the last cringing remnant of a practice of the law where to be a lawyer is to be a supplicant: ‘May it please Your Honour,’ and ‘If Your Honour pleases,’ ‘Your Honour’ and ‘My learned friend’. All this is the fawning debris of a stratified society in which the quality of the cloth was the quality of the wearer.

New Zealand is an egalitarian society and our only just claim to respect is what we do and how we conduct ourselves. And judges are the same. The sooner lawyers and judges get it, that we do not own the courts but participate in a professional service for the benefit of the people of New Zealand, the better.

As has been said many times before, traditional court attire can only survive in a culture that puts people in jail for laughing. This initiative is a leap backwards.

Funny clothes are for private clubs, private schools, freemasons and sects. The gown is the last remnant of the ill-matched black gown of the medieval scholar and teacher and the powdered wig of the restoration fop. Individually and collectively, with or without little bibby things, they are silly, elitist, and serve no proper function in the support of a people first justice system.

ENDS

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