Judges will go back to school to have their skills tested, under a radical training programme.

The new Judicial College will offer lessons in the craft of judging, with judges acting out trials and facing judgment from their peers on their performance.

They will be filmed so that they can see themselves in action and receive feedback on how well they manage courts, deal with unexpected and high-conflict situations and arrive at their rulings.

The course is one of 15 on offer to judges from next April as part of a strategy to boost the training of nearly 2,000 full-time judges in England and Wales. Every full-time judge will be expected to devise a training programme that will involve on average four days' training (three of them residential) every year.

At present, the bulk of judicial training occurs at the start of a judge’s career on the bench. Judges are expected to attend refresher courses throughout their careers but these mainly consist of lectures on new laws. Analysis of this set-up has concluded that England and Wales are in danger of slipping behind the training given to judges in other countries.

The programme will be unveiled in a new prospectus to be published next week, with the backing of Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice.

In his foreword, the most senior judge in England and Wales describes the project as ambitious and resource-intensive but extremely welcome. He says that the training will help judges to maintain their skills and keep them up to date with developments in the law, practice and procedure. It would also enable judges to learn from each other.

“Judicial work is essentially an isolated activity and one judge very rarely sees how another judge sets about his or her work.

“Judicial education gives judges an opportunity seldom available in their ordinary working lives to discuss and benefit from sharing good practice and to learn from each other,” Lord Judge said.

Lord Justice Maurice Kay, chairman of the existing Judicial Studies Board, the body in charge of judges’ training, said that judges would use a university in central England for their courses and would not have their own judicial college building, although that is the longer-term plan.

Lord Justice Kay said that the programme marked a radical shift away from that old system to a more practical training. “This will give them increased confidence in their skills and, in turn, the public will have increased confidence in the judiciary — that is the ultimate aim.”

One aim of judicial training is to ensure that judges are sensitive and aware of those in court and to ensure that offensive or rude remarks — a regular feature of press headlines — are avoided. In recent years crass remarks by judges — to rape victims, for instance — have become a rarity; but judges still occasionally hit the headlines over off-the-cuff comments.

Judge John Phillips, director of studies at the Judicial Studies Board, who has been devising the programme, said that courses covering criminal, civil and family work would run from next April.

Judges are running the training programme. There will be 20 to 25 course directors for each course and more than 100 tutor judges to chair small seminar groups. “Judicial skills can only be taught by other judges,” Judge Phillips said. The judges would not be paid but get time off to do the tutoring.

The original plan was for a bigger programme that would be open to all part-time judges, tribunal chairman and magistrates. However, cost constraints have meant that it will focus initially on full-time judges and tribunal members.

A key feature of the prospectus is that it allows individual judges to tailor-make their training, picking the courses best suited to their needs. Under criminal law, for instance, judges can pick options on sentencing, serious crime, sexual offences and Crown Court trials.

Under family law, they may pick seminars on children and what is called public law (care cases) or family money (private law).

A prospectus for tribunal members includes seminars on working effectively on a panel, judicial leadership and appraisal and mentoring skills.

About £8 million is already allocated to the training of judges. The programme will involve another £1.3 million over the first three years.

Misjudged remarks

Judge Ian Trigger criticised the Government for allowing “hundreds and hundreds of thousands” of illegal immigrants to abuse the benefits system

District Judge Margaret Short was dismissed for “inappropriate, petulant and rude” remarks

Judge Ian Alexander, QC, passed a note to a defence counsel. It read “Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”

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