This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures.

This lecture in the series Law, Justice and Democracy, given by John McCluskey, was originally broadcast in 1986.

If I were to be asked what temptations any new judge is exposed to, I should have to admit that they include arrogance, self-esteem and impatience.

That answer must alarm all who know that the principal qualities a judge must possess are

humility, modesty and tolerance. But just think of the facts. He has been elevated to a position in which he wields a royal authority.

The apparatus of the state lies ready to enforce his orders.

The visible symbols of his office, the way he dresses, the place in which he sits,

the manner in which he is addressed, the respect which is accorded.

All are designed to buttress that authority to intimidate those

who might wish to challenge or evade it. But it goes deeper than that. He has seen it all before.

After a quarter century of forensic jousting, he has emerged in the estimation of those

shadowy powers who decide such

things as the competent, best fitted to preside over future contests, deemed to possess the wisdom,

the experience, the discretion to decide the rights and wrongs of his fellow citizens,

to personify the majesty of the law.

As he sits on the bench observing the exposure by the forensic process of the frailties of litigants, pleaders, witnesses and malefactors,

the whole scene tends to reinforce a sense of being placed above and superior to the struggle.

Of course he knows that he is not in fact a superior being,

but he is expected to comport himself as if he were.

And these accumulated experiences encourage him to suppose

that if he were given a freer hand and a larger canvas,

he could dispense a greater measure of justice, provide a more ordered way of regulating social conflict. Even if judges

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