Madam, - The question (John Kenny, January 13th) of why a judge's summing up in a criminal case had not been the subject of widespread criticism admits of one simple answer: there still remains a level of respect for the statements of High Court judges that shades into dread of incarceration for contempt of court.
Until fairly recently, anyone minded to voice criticism of the statements of judges of the superior courts would have done so only if they viewed with equanimity a spell in Mountjoy. Though the fear is now completely unfounded, old habits die hard and as a result the senior judiciary are deprived of the full play of comment and criticism that benefits other senior public servants.
Only the utterances of the judicial branch of government are treated with such circumspection and deference. Indeed, the judgments and statements of the superior courts are generally subject only to the most delicate and lawyerly of academic comment, so that daftness, eccentricity or modishness that would be ridiculed if encountered in the lower courts pass relatively unscathed if emanating from the courts above. - Yours, etc,
HUGO BRADY BROWN, Stratford on Slaney, Co Wicklow.