Another disappointing sentence

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Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

thats not entirely correct judges have a guide but in the court room they do have some discretion the judge in this case could have imposed a custodial sentence

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He/She would have to justify a deviation from the guidelines - and I'm very firmly in the camp of not appreciating activist judges. Their job is to interpret and apply the law as written by Parliament, not to craft it according to their whims.

In this case of course I would prefer the application of jail time, but I can think of any number of other cases where judges making it up as they go along would be not great. On balance, if you want folks in jail for longer, lobby your MP for this, so the Judges can just do their job, not theirs and Parliaments.

He wasnt a rugby player was he

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Originally Posted by MarkN

I general terms, Judges are drawn from the better of the Lawyers.

Like a chippy could progress from hammer hand, to builder, to Master Builder. He's not gonna be a Master Builder if he's crap with the hammer.

My mistake when originally talking about Lawyers and Judges was that I assumed that people would know that the Judges are usually made from very good and honourable Lawyers .

Unlike in the states where you can be a Judge or a Sheriff by being voted for, qualifications not required.

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I disagree, very good lawyers for the most part will follow the $$$ and that is not becoming a judge (typically it's working for a big corp or big law firm).

Judge is a career path for average or less than average lawyers.

Like I've said, I've known a few lawyers in my time (personal not in their role as lawyers) as well as done some work for large law firms (including some who ended up being in the news).