Examples Of Court Observation By Tocqueville

The essence of what it means to be a lawyer is captured by Tocqueville’s perceptive account that lawyers “belong to the people by birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by taste, and they may be looked upon as the natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes of society.” After the first year of my legal studies, which has nurtured my great respect for the institution of the judiciary, I have come to the realisation that judicial review in the realm of public law is the area that I am most interested in, in awe of, and wish to devote my future service towards. Furthering Tocqueville’s saying above, I believe that public law is the frontline at which lawyers are able to defend laymen, for the constitution intrinsically defines how far the government adheres to the rule of law, how prerogative power is exercised, and within what parameters does the U.K.

The mood of the court was sufficiently solemn but not suffocating. Yet the hierarchal statuses of the people present was not hard to observe. The judge, at the top of the courtroom hierarchy, sat on the highest chair at the front of the courtroom facing the rest of the courtroom. He was accompanied by a secretary in his immediate front, at a lower level. The claimant and the barrister that represented the Crown sat at the two ends of a same long desk, equipped with computers. The desk was located at the centre of the courtroom.

The fact that the claimant was representing himself immediately caught my attention. He appeared to be perplexed as to what was going on in the courtroom, albeit showing some understanding as to what stage of the procedures he was in. The judge, throughout the hearing, had to repeatedly asked the claimant “do you understand what this means?” And had the answer been negative, which was predominantly the case, the judge explained technicalities in laymen