Judges and barristers in Britain’s criminal courts will continue to wear horsehair wigs and wing collars next year when their colleagues in the civil and family courts abandon the seventeenth century get up.
In a survey by the Lord Chief Justice only 42% of the public approved of the way judges dress and even fewer, 34%, felt the same about barristers. But a majority of court staff did like the fancy dress. One commented approvingly that it could be “intimidating”.
The decision to allow just some judges to dress sensibly seems to be an attempt to find a compromise between
the wishes of a majority of the people for behaviour befitting a democracy and the wishes those who work in the court system to prolong the mystification.