Nominated Judges / Investigating Judges

The request was partially successful.

Dear Judicial Conduct Investigations Office,

under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information:

1) the name (and judicial title) of all current Nominated Judges per Regulation 9 of the Judicial Discipline (Prescribed Procedures) Regulations 2014

2) the name (and judicial title) of all judges who can currently be designated as Investigating Judges per Regulation 10 of the Judicial Discipline (Prescribed Procedures) Regulations 2014

Separately, I also have the following questions, which I suppose would fall to be treated as general enquiry instead as they do not directly ask for recorded information:

3) In what way would the JCIO's usual procedure be altered or applied differently if a complaint (prima facie eligible for acceptance) were to be made against the Lord Chief Justice in his capacity as JOH? Please explain what alterations would be made in terms of appointing a Nominated Judge / Investigating Judge, where applicable, and who would exercise the LCJ's functions throughout the judicial conduct process.

4) Are there also specific procedures / changes to procedure for eligible complaints against other judges due to their seniority (e.g. the Master of the Rolles) or due to the role they may usually have in judicial conduct matters (e.g. the Senior Presiding Judge)?

5) If a complaint were to be made against a Lord Justice of Appeal, and it were to become necessary to appoint an Investigating Judge under Regulation 10, how would the requirement that "the investigating judge must be of a higher rank than the office holder concerned" be fulfilled in practice?

Many thanks and yours faithfully,

John Roberts

Customer OJC, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office

Thank you for your email. The JCIO aims to provide a response to all
correspondence within 15 working days, where appropriate. In the meantime,
information about the JCIO, including copies of the rules and regulations
governing our processes, can be found at:
http://judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk

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Customer OJC, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office

Thank you for your email. We usually aim to reply to correspondence within
15 working days. However, a staff shortage means that it is currently
taking much longer to reply. Please do not reply to this email or send
follow-up emails. We have your complaint and will respond as soon as
possible.

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Langworth, Sam, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Roberts

 

Please see attached.

 

Yours sincerely

Sam Langworth

 

Senior Caseworker | Judicial Conduct Investigations Office | 81 -
82 Queens Building | Royal Courts of Justice | Strand | London WC2A 2LL |
http://judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/

 

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Dear Mr Langworth,

many thanks for your message. The FOIA response to questions 1 and 2 is perfectly clear and appreciated.

With your indulgence, I will ask one follow-up question to Q3 (under official correspondence, of course):
thank you for drawing my attention that the office of Lord Chief Justice is not listed in either s109(5) CRA or Schedule 14 CRA, I had indeed overlooked that.

This begs the question, however, how (otherwise admissible) complaints about the Lord Chief Justice would be dealt with if they were made to the JCIO. I do understand that the JCIO has (for the above reason) no competence to deal with judicial conduct complaints against the LCJ, but would these be forwarded to anyone else to deal with?

As you will be aware, the Supreme Court has its own separate procedure for complaints against its Justices (https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/judici...), so if the LCJ was the only role for which there was no judicial conduct investigation framework, that would seem like a strange gap.

If the JCIO does not feel able to comment on this - which I would understand - could you transmit the above question to either the Ministry of Justice or the Judicial Office please?

Your responses to Q4 and Q5 are well noted.

Yours sincerely,

John Roberts

Langworth, Sam, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office

Dear Mr Roberts

Thank you for your email.

The JCIO is the body with responsibility for handling complaints about the personal misconduct of judicial office holders. As previously advised, for the purposes of discipline, a judicial office holder is an individual who holds an office given in section 109 or schedule 14 of the CRA.

Where the JCIO receives a complaint that does not contain an allegation of misconduct against a judicial office holder, it rejects the complaint in accordance with rule 8 of the Judicial Conduct (Judicial and other office holders) Rules 2014; rule 8 sets out the criteria for a valid complaint.

Yours sincerely
Sam Langworth

Senior Caseworker | Judicial Conduct Investigations Office | 81 - 82 Queens Building | Royal Courts of Justice | Strand | London WC2A 2LL | http://judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/

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