Guru: Judges to be judged in appraisal scheme

Judges to be judged in appraisal scheme

Judges, famed for having never heard of the Beatles or the internet, are to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century world of work. Yep - the Beak is about to receive that horror of HR horrors the work performance assessment.

A working party of judges - something of an oxymoron, that, if you ask Guru presumably they start around 10:30am, take a two-hour break for lunch and adjourn the meeting at around 3pm due to a missing file - has been set up to report to the Judges' Council on the benefits of an appraisal scheme.

Judges are set to be assessed on: handling a court showing authority communicating resolving issues and managing time and workloads. Guru could quite happily rate the judge he saw last week - a case of mistaken identity and a jumped-up community support officer, you understand - but apparently the scorecard does not allow for such language.

The point is, however, that anyone who has had the misfortune to go through the criminal 'justice' system would welcome sanctimonious judges being subjected to a modicum of regulation themselves. But these poor souls are not happy. District judge Stephen Gerlis told the Times that, while a work assessment pilot had proved effective in picking up problems, it was "quite stressful for the judge knowing his or her every move was being watched and tiring as it is a long day".

I am sure Guru joins all HR professionals in extending his deepest sympathy to these poor, overworked, underpaid, overly-scrutinised judges.