FOCUS: Behind the robes

Wednesday 02 January 2019

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In a rare interview, two Jurats speak out on everything from diversity (and lack thereof), the political divide and the court cases that keep them up at night.

Never underestimate the power of a uniform. Over the past century, countless social experiments have confirmed that simple items of clothing though they may be, a set ensemble – however elaborate – confers respect, authority and power - a distinction between the ‘deciders’ and the ‘decided for'.

Though justifiable given their role, this split is something Jersey’s robe-wearing Jurats – members of the judges’ bench whose role dates back to the 13th century – are trying to break down. 

Despite their names appearing in the media perhaps more frequently than some celebrities, when the gowns are off, these are people you may not even recognise in the street. They are ‘normal’ people with ‘normal’ lives – save for volunteering their spare time to make some of the island’s most important judgment calls, often with implications echoing around the world. 

In a rare interview, two Jurats invited Express to glimpse the world behind the regalia… 

Laughing about everything from his brief post-retirement stint as a tourist guide, to how court sittings allow him to cheekily escape grandfatherly babysitting duties, it’s hard to believe that Jersey’s most senior Jurat, a smiling Paul Nicolle, is sometimes perceived to be part of ‘the Establishment'.

Pictured: The Lieutenant Bailiff, Jurat Paul Nicolle, and Jurat Elizabeth Dulake in the Royal Court corridors.

The same applies to the island’s most junior Jurat, Elizabeth Dulake, a former RAF squadron leader whose military career was sandwiched between two spells in the finance industry, totalling over 30 years.

Of course, despite stereotypes perpetuated by small pockets of society, it isn’t really the case that the pair are part of an ‘exclusive’ ruling elite. 

With three Jurats due to retire in early 2019 – Jurats Geoffrey Grime, Sally Sparrow and Paul Nicolle himself – the duo are, in fact, here today to encourage islanders from all backgrounds to join the fray. 

The pair are, in a sense, sympathetic to some of the reasons why their group of 12 deciders of fact in court cases, who are also responsible for setting sentences and awarding damages, have previously been seen as a ‘clique'.

After all, they only achieved equal representation of men and women for the first time in 2018 with the swearing in of Jurat Dulake – and are keen to maintain this status when three new Jurats are appointed next year.

The lack of a gender gap puts them “way ahead of most jurisdictions”, but they want to go even further by injecting a dose of diversity too. 

It’s a challenge the UK judiciary are also grappling with. The head of the UK's highest court, Lady Brenda Hale, recently made a public call for courtroom make-up to reflect the population – and Jersey’s Jurats want to lead this charge locally by welcoming members of the Portuguese and Polish communities. 

“Diversity, I think, is a strength… We're concerned that the Jurats really are representing the community, they're playing a part in the decision-making processes on behalf of the community,” Jurat Nicolle explains. 

Pictured: Jurat Elizabeth Dulake's appointment marked an equality milestone for the island's justice system.

Diversity of life experience, too, is important, he adds. One of the most common misconceptions is that Jurats must have legal experience, but that is not the case. 

Indeed, Jurat Nicolle finds himself sitting alongside a former doctor, headteacher and a finance professional on a regular basis. 

“I was in the States human resources department. I retired and did a bit of Blue Badge guiding, because I'm committed to my island, so I enjoyed showing visitors what Jersey was all about. Then somebody said, 'Well, have you ever considered being a Jurat?' and I always had thought about it, because my great-grandfather had been a Jurat and there was always that in the back of my mind. So I very enthusiastically said ‘yes’ and took the plunge.” 

Jurats are appointed by an electoral college, which includes the Bailiff, other Jurats, politicians, members of the bar and solicitors. Following a swearing in ceremony at the Royal Court, new Jurats are then thrown straight into the rather unique red-robed world, in which they will remain until the age of 72. 

The role can see them thrown before court cases so complicated that they find themselves doodling complex diagrams of family trees and company structures – “drawing’s quite a skill,” Jurat Dulake admits.

But newcomers aren’t left to muddle on alone. 

There are plentiful courses and away days to explain new or complex matters of law – most recently this related to ‘curatorships’ – while new Jurats also visit the courts and prison to get a “full understanding” of the implications of their sentencing powers. “It was really quite an eye-opener,” says Jurat Dulake, who made the jump into Jurat life just 11 months ago, and says it has already gone very quickly. 

So far, the work has been varied. The most junior Jurat has already sat on a mix of criminal and financial cases, and has been called upon for “warrant and committal duties” during her duty week (the team works on a rota). 

Pictured: The Royal Court, where the Jurats sit on cases.

“If the Police want to commit somebody because they've charged them with something and they're not going to allow them out on bail, then they're going to commit them to La Moye, then they have to seek your approval… Search warrants can be at any time and Jurats have been called in the midst of the night,” Jurat Nicolle explains.

Fortunately, the latest Jurat Dulake has been called upon was only 20:00, with later calls apparently “rare.” However, she admits: “You still go to bed thinking, ‘Will I be called?’” 

Potential late-night calls weren’t the biggest surprise about the role for her, however – it was the amount of work “in private.”

“We do a lot on the family division, which obviously isn’t reported.” 

It’s those decisions, which can include hard calls over whether to allow children to be adopted, or to send them into care away from the island, that Jurat Nicolle describes as especially “emotional and challenging". 

“I've certainly gone home and lay in bed and thought about some of the issues.  I must admit, on one particular childcare case, I became really emotional, because this poor boy, the psychologists told how they had visited the boy and he was lying in bed in the foetal position and he said words to the effect of, 'My life is over.'  I was reading this and I really became very emotional,” he confesses. 

But there is support on-hand – specialist evidence in the form of medical, psychological and social worker reports – to help them in their decision-making.

“You don’t go into it at all lightly,” Jurat Dulake adds. “Most people going into that are, you know, fighting for a child from one point or another and you're always hoping you've made the very best decision you could for the life of that child, its future.”

Pictured: Court cases involving children are amongst the most "emotional and challenging", the pair agree.

Hearing the pair speak so candidly about their difficulties on the topic adds extra weight to Jurat Dulake’s later assertion that Jurats are not divorced from the tragedies of reality, with empathy a key feature of the role – indeed, she had to deal with the passing of her own father within her first few months in the role.

“We’re not sitting in ivory towers somewhere, we’ve all got families, friends, disasters that have befallen us at some point in our life.” 

Asked whether their unique view of some of the social problems facing the island – recruitment difficulties within Children’s Services leading children to be sent away from the island being just one of these – Jurat Nicolle carefully measures each word of his response. 

While maintaining the importance of the separation between “the judiciary and the executive”, he says the group have spoken with the Children’s Commissioner “on a very practical level about how we view the situation” and, “more prosaically”, have also made submissions to panels of politicians over the Licensing Law (one of their more controversial roles is granting liquor licenses).

“We do have some input into the political system,” he says. 

The separation of powers may be a controversial topic, but so too – albeit on a smaller scale – is that of Jurat Nicolle’s role as Lieutenant Bailiff. 

The title is one handed to a Jurat who is then able to sit as the presiding judge in some court hearings. 

“It's an extraordinary honour. When I left school, I went into the civil service and one day I met one of my former teachers and he asked me how I was doing. He said, 'Oh, gosh, one day you'll end up being Bailiff.' I went away from that conversation thinking, 'What a silly man.' You know, to be a Bailiff, you've got to be in the legal profession and you have to follow a different career path. I must admit, when the Bailiff said, 'I'd like to make you Lieutenant Bailiff,' I thought back to that occasion and thought, 'Wow.'”

Pictured: Jurat Paul Nicolle, whose former teacher tipped him for big things long ago, described becoming Lieutenant Bailiff as an "extraordinary honour".

But, despite criticism over the fact post-holders don’t have a legal background, which recently led one local advocate to call for the role to be reviewed, Jurat Nicolle defends the traditional role on the grounds that it doesn’t tend to touch on legal issues, and comes with enough support to ensure that the right decisions are made. 

“If you feel that the decision is significant, and it touches on legal issues, then you adjourn on it in order for the Bailiff, Deputy Bailiff or Commissioner to take on the issues subsequently.”

In any case, the position of Jurat itself is more than traditional – it’s quite frankly ancient, having stemmed from King John who instituted 12 ‘coroners’ in the 13th century to play a key role in the administration of justice.

Speaking of how the role has changed over the years, the pair note that defendants in criminal cases will often choose juries made up of islanders, rather than Jurats, as deciders of fact in trials. Jurat Dulake also jokes that the King may not have anticipated Jersey’s 100,000-strong population and tangle of complex finance legislation when the role was dreamed up in 1204. 

But, despite a modern-world tendency to take ‘old’ as slang for ‘redundant’, the role still holds advantages.

The pair note that UK Commissioners presiding on Jersey court cases have praised the system because they enjoy discussing with others, rather than deciding in isolation, as they would in their home courts. 

Decision time itself is laced with tradition. “Things are done in quite a hierarchical way,” Jurat Nicolle explains. In a sentencing hearing, Jurats can either sit in the ‘Inferior Number’, where the maximum jail-time that can be handed down is four years, or the ‘Superior Number’, which can see sentences given above this limit.

Having heard all arguments in such a hearing, each Jurat will give their opinion in order of seniority. A discussion will follow and, if there is no consensus, the presiding judge will have to take one side – “He cannot impose his own decision and say, ‘Well you say two years and you say three, so I’m going to say two-and-a-half.’”

Pictured: The pair have a chat in the room where all the decisions are made - the Royal Court's robing room - surrounded by legal bundles.

The ‘room where it happens’ is the Royal Court’s robing room – a large space with walls adorned with class photo-style images of past teams, a massive wooden table, and bundles – so many bundles. It’s not just the robing room that’s over-run with them - the corridors of the Royal Court building are equally stacked. 

They are the physical manifestation of the dedication – and fondness for reading – necessary for the role.

When Jurat Dulake was sworn in, the Attorney General laughed that she would need “long arms and strong biceps for the role” – she now realises that it wasn’t really a joke at all. “I think I ought to be doing some weightlifting!” she quips.

It certainly raises the question, why would anyone want to do this when they could see out their retirement in a relaxing way? 

“I'm 61 now, but my husband's 71 and, when I'm not there, I'm sure… the dog and he are having a little snooze and I'm coming in, going, 'Right, well, what have you done today?'… But I think it’s good for you, because if you finish work at 60 to 65, you have got a lot to contribute and your grey matter, you need to keep using it.”

“It is said that if you pack up work and you stop using your brain, then maybe that's a contributory factor to subsequent dementia,” Jurat Nicolle says.

It seems that being a person who enjoys being busy is almost a prerequisite for the role – indeed, Jurat Nicolle has no intention of stopping in retirement, and is considering writing a book. 

Jurat Dulake adds that she “missed it” when she took a recent holiday.

Pictured: Being a Jurat is no easy retirement, with hundreds of documents needing to be read for each case.

Rather than being worn down by the regular heavy reading and “writers’ cramp” that comes with notetaking, the pair draw their energy from the “international flavour” and “how the other half live” nature of the cases.

“When I was an innocent civil servant, I never dreamt of the billions of pounds that are invested through Jersey by families, and families fall out and suddenly you find all sorts of contentions coming up and beneficiaries fighting and taking the matter to court,” Jurat Nicolle says.

There’s also the great sense of community that comes with the ceremonial function on occasions such as Liberation Day and the recent Armistice commemorations – “seeing people waving and smiling.”

Predominantly, though, their energy comes from a genuine sense of doing good for their beloved home island.

Jurat Dulake explains: “People sometimes say, 'Are you enjoying it?' ‘Enjoying’ is probably not the right word, because of the nature of some of the things that you're dealing with.”

“You're sending people to prison,” Jurat Nicolle chips in.

“It's not enjoyable, but it is rewarding, because you feel like you're genuinely trying to make a difference and help society.”

Would you like to be a Jurat?

Islanders who are interested in becoming a Jurat, know someone else who might be, or would simply like to learn more about the role, can contact Lieutenant Bailiff Paul Nicolle on 07797 841457 or the Bailiff's Judicial Secretary, Mrs Debbie Le Mottée on D.LeMottee@gov.je.

This article originally appeared in Connect Magazine, which you can read in full by clicking here.