The divine right of ...judges

Poem published in Free Speech segment of NTEU Newletter.

“The Role of Judges in the Formation of Public Law: Activism or Autolimitation?

(with G. Anthony).

Robert Hays, et al. vs. the Pennsylvania railroad co., et al. Reply to Mr. Patterson's charges against the canal transporters; opinions of Judges Gibson, Bell and Coulter ...

At head of title: Supreme court of Pennsylvania.

A generation of judges,

Cockburn.--Lush.--Quain and Archibald.--Kelly.--Cleasby.--Willes.--Byles.--Martin.--James and Mellish.--Thesiger.--Holker.--Amphlett and Hall.--Hatherley.--Malins.--Cairns.--Jessel.--Karslake.--Benjamin.--Phillimore.--Watkin Williams

Report of the Special House Committee created pursuant to House Resolution 249, November 1970 : report to the House of Representatives of the 76th General Assembly of the State of Illinois.

Cover title.

The book of Judges;

Mode of access: Internet.

The book of Judges : in the Revised Version : with introduction and notes /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A corpus-assisted study of the discourse marker well as an indicator of judges' institutional roles in court cases with litigants in person

In this paper, I concentrate on court cases with litigants in person (lay people who act on their own behalf in legal proceedings without a counsel or solicitor) and discuss the challenges of building a corpus of courtroom discourse where it is crucial to distinguish between speakers due to their distinct institutional roles. The corpus incorporates seven sub-corpora of verbatim transcripts from different court cases with litigants in person and comprises over eleven-million tokens. The focus of this paper is on the interplay between the legal and lay discourse types and how judges project their institutional roles through well-initiated turns directed at litigants in person and counsels. As a versatile discourse marker, well provides a good opportunity to explore how judges have to adapt their roles to ensure lay litigants in person receive the necessary support and that their lack of competence does not impede on the fairness of the proceedings. Given the breadth and importance of the topic of litigation in person, I discuss how the tools and approaches of corpus linguistics can be helpful in this multi-disciplinary area where multiple functions and uses of individual linguistic features need to be explored in depth.

The establishment of the Judicial Appointments Commission in Malaysia to improve the constitutional method of appointing the judges of the superior courts : a critical study

The Judicial Appointments Commission was established in Malaysia in 2009 to ensure unbiased selection of judicial candidates for the consideration of the Prime Minister, who has the final say regarding the appointment of judges to the superior courts. But the provisions concerning Prime Minister’s power to appoint the majority of the members of the Commission and his unfettered power of removing four of the five appointed members without assigning any reason, have calculatedly been devised for ensuring the selection of judicial candidates having right political patronage in accordance with the covert wishes of the Prime Minister. Furthermore, the Prime Minister’s power of rejecting the Commission’s recommendations of multiple candidates renders the undertaking of a lengthy process of selection unproductive and useless. Thus the Judicial Appointments Commission has become a superfluous body with an ineffective modus operandi to attain the stipulated objectives of improving and complementing the constitutional method of appointing judges to the superior courts. Since the Federal Constitution of Malaysia has not empowered the Parliament to enact a law providing for the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission, it also appears that the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009 is an invalid piece of legislation.

An examination of the sentencing remarks of Indigenous and non-Indigenous criminal defendants in South Australia’s Higher Courts

Recent Australian research on Indigenous sentencing primarily explores whether disparities in sentencing outcomes exist. Little is known about how judges perceive or refer to Indigenous defendants and their histories, and how they interpret the circumstances of Indigenous defendants in justifying their sentencing decisions. Drawing on the ‘focal concerns’ approach, this study presents a narrative analysis of a sample of judges’ sentencing remarks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous criminal defendants convicted in South Australia’s Higher Courts. The analysis found that the sentencing stories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous offenders differed in ways that possibly reduced assessments of blameworthiness and risk for Indigenous defendants.