Porn judges’ case

Posted By: James

Thursday 2nd April 2015

David Pannick QC, writing in the Times, discusses the recent case of three judges who were dismissed for viewing pornographic material in their offices. He says that although ‘The Guide to Judicial Conduct’ states that IT equipment should not be used: “for other purposes which could bring the judge or the judiciary in general into disrepute”, the judges were not accused of watching illegal material, nor was it suggested that their viewing habits interfered with the performance of their judicial duties. The judgement, he says, was a purely moral one, since if they had watched the same material in their office online on their own computers or iPads, their jobs would not have been on the line. He concludes that dismissing the judges for a first offence of private use of official computer equipment for a lawful purpose was inappropriate, and adds: “If anything brought those judges, and the judiciary, ‘into disrepute’, it was the decision to dismiss them.”

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