Supreme Court ditches traditional robes for counsel

[ashutosh majumdar]

I read this in http://www.firmmagazine.com

The UK Supreme Court has announced that counsel appearing before it need not wear "any or all of the elements of traditional court dress," in a move they say would provide an appropriate environment for considered discussion of legal issues.

"The Justices of the Court do not wear legal dress themselves and have decided not to impose this obligation on advocates appearing before them," the court said in a statement.

"In future, provided that all the advocates in any particular case agree, they may communicate to the Registrar their wish to dispense with part or all of court dress. The Court will normally agree to such a request.

"It is anticipated that while some advocates will not wish to take advantage of this dispensation, others may prefer to reduce their legal dress to a simple gown, or to appear without legal dress at all."

The Lord President has confirmed this afternoon that there are "no proposals" to consider a similar proposal in Scotland.

Now my Q is: Like Slaves we have copied from the British. Now that the British have themselves abandoned these practices, how many decades before we (slaves) decided to change our habits?

[subodh]

Hi Asutosh... I fully share the pains u have.
We have have been copying british nonesensely.
bt on the pt. i may have a bit different feeling on this point.
during the past, and they have gone much ahead of us so far discipline and civic sense is concerned... or say we have lagged much behind. (their Lord Macaulay had duly certified that we were much ahead in 1933 or 1935).
Whether our leadership / governance has done anything for the re-attining of that level of culture and civic sense that was spoiled by british, or say by us under their influence.
Unfortunately, the leaders of "independant india" remained 'dependant' on money and unethic & corrupt practices to get political gain, and did nothing for real development, or say did enough to sabotage the human values in indians.
today UK can abandone the dress as their conuntrymen and professionals have achieved a high degree of self discipline in thieir lives - they dont spit or urinate on/besiedes roads, they dont break the ques, . Have we done so ??
we are mad behind cricket - a game in which we slaves had a duty to collect the ball baatted by the Rulers. A game which is a blot on us, a game which can not be said as a real Game, nor an Indian game, nor even an international game in fact... But we are mad and Govt is promoting...
Where have our own games gone?? What about our national game?? Could we neglect football and hockey at the cost of slave's cricket had our leaders even a bit of feeling for "Nation" ..
Sorry if i hurt your feeling.

[probal_shome]

I don't know why we tend to denigrate ourselves at every opportunity. Calling ourselves "slaves" is not in good taste. Patriotism does not mean that we take a swing at the British at every opportunity. Let's not forget that we, a bunch of petty princely states, are a mighty united Nation today, only thanks to the British. Also, our infrastructural facilities (railways) are also thanks to the British.

If you are averse to certain habits being carried on since long, then you are certainly entitled to campaign against that. But it must be done in a rational, sensible and objective manner for it to have any impact. Being emotional about it is no way to go forward.

[subodh]

dear shome. the matter is not of denigrating - we were just comparing that whats happening in UK and India.
and about the word i used - its truth, we were slaves - remianing silent woudn't change our past - yes we could throw away that unpleasant past by attaining hights after getting independence like many countries did so.
at the same time i drew attention towards the proud past by pointing on what Macauley had stated about India in the British Parliament. and based on his report, our culture was education system was destroyed in a planned way. In fact we were much much better until then than what we are now in this country of princely states.