UK’s Cycling Chief Justice

Today’s edition of the British newspaper The Telegraph has an item about Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, the top judge in England the Wales.

In the article entitled We’re in touch with everyday life, says the cycling judge, Lord Philips, who bikes to work [there’s a lovely photo of him on his bicycle, helmet and all], explains that many of his colleagues “travel on buses and Tubes and bicycles; we push trolleys around supermarkets; we have normal family concerns and commitments and neither are judges immune from the impact of crime”.

At the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner for the judges in the City of London, Lord Philips also defended British judges from some of the often harsh criticism they have run into recently over criminal trial verdicts various politicians as well as the populist British tabloids felt were too lenient.

Well, I don’t know whether the Justices here at the Supreme Court of Canada drive, walk, bike or rollerblade to work. Hmm, rollerblading judges. Now that would be a very Fellini’s Roma moment. But I digress.

Judges here can also be quite laid back. I have occasionally bumped into this or that judge walking back to the court building with shopping bags from the local pharmacy or other shops after running some lunchtime errand.

But no bikes yet.