The Legal Research Society

Civil and Family Court Judges will no longer wear those fantastic wigs. From the BBC : The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, has announced there will be no change to the 18th Century-style garb in criminal courts. But judges and lawyers in family and civil courts have been ordered to ditch their wigs and wing-collars. The Judicial Communications Office said the changes would save £300,000 a year after a one-off cost of about £200,000. That would be spent on producing a new civil gown, a spokesman said. The decisions follow a £110,000 consultation paper on possible reforms, which was launched in May 2003. Lord Phillips said seasonal variations in the robes of High Court judges would be abolished. I wonder if Scots or Northern Irish judges will follow suit and ditch their wigs as well. Scottish court dress is very similar to English court dress, but there are notable differences. For example, Scottish advocates wear tail coats under their gowns, and wear white

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundatio