As Lord Atkin said in 1936, “Justice is not a cloistered virtue”. It can be strongly criticised provided its critics are “respectful”. Respect, though, was not what Judge Brad Thomas got when he went to discuss a judgment with someone. “Get out of my f***ing office”, he was told, before being ejected. The outburst might have been less startling if the person shouting the abuse wasn’t Judge Charles J. Kahn Jr. of the 1st District Court of Appeal in Florida.

In testimony at a recent preliminary hearing of the Judicial Qualifications Commission, Judge Kahn (formerly Chief Judge until deposed by his brethren) explained his loss of temper. Thomas had gone to see him to disagree with a judgment he’d given and this riled Kahn because, he said, “I had been on the court for 14 or 15 years and he had been on the court for a week or two”.

The hearing has involved a jaw-dropping sequence of testimony in which senior judges have accused each other of being “volatile” and “schizoid”, of lying, having hotel sex with court employees, and of threatening behaviour.

Don Brannon, court marshal for 27 years at the Florida courthouse, said that he thought Judge Kahn was unstable and he became worried when he seemed set to apply for a concealed weapons permit and a handgun. Anxiety deepened when two other judges decided to get guns. Brannon arranged for extra police security at a judicial ceremony. Other evidence about Judge Kahn involved stories of his affairs with female court staff, including liaisons with a clerk and photos of them in a South Florida hotel.

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But it isn’t Judge Kahn who is on trial. For that we need to swing 180 degrees to face one of his critics. It is Judge Michael E. Allen. He’s charged with “conduct unbecoming of a judge”. It breaks down like this. Judge Kahn had allowed the appeal of a politician convicted of corruption. But the judge’s former law partner was close to the reprieved politician, so it looked like Judge Kahn might not have been neutral. Judge Allen was charged with “conduct unbecoming” after he wrote an opinion critical of Judge Kahn for sitting in the case.

The evidence of up to 15 senior judges will be relevant at the forthcoming full hearing. Acrimonious threats among them to sue and complain have abounded. I guess any judge entering the hearing with a gavel in his hand will be required to disarm.

Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University

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