TERMS OF SERVICE
Here, I am more than content to quote Sir Albert Napier, Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor from 1944 till 1954. In a paper written for the British Council, on the Structure of the Judicial System in Overseas Territories, he emphasized that a Judge ought to have a high salary and an adequate pension.
This is not only because of the heavy responsibilities of his office. The financial reward must be sufficient to induce a successful advocate to relinquish not only his private practice but many of his outside activities as well, and to compensate him for lifelong limitations on the additional sources of income available to him. For example, directorships in companies, which are open to many men in salaried occupations, are denied to a Judge; and when he retires he should be precluded from returning to the Bar. Pensions cannot be calculated in the same way as those of other public officers, since preferment to the Bench comes comparatively late in life. Sir Albert mentioned two ways of meeting that situation—addition of years to actual years of service in calculating pension; or a rule that (as in England) a Judge can earn a maximum pension in, say, fifteen years.I must, however, suggest a qualification. It is apparent that Sir
* See footnote on p. 11.
Albert Napier had particularly in mind Judges appointed from a local Bar. In United Kingdom dependent territories the Judiciary has for many years been primarily recruited from the ranks of a Service offering a career for life, not radically different in quality as a career from that of a Civil Servant. Many of the Judges and magistrates are expatriates, and any rule limiting their activities after retirement from the Bench would appear to have little validity on their retirement to their country of origin. In general, therefore, the ordinary Civil Service salary pattern and pension laws are not unsuitable. But they have long been insufficiently attractive for leading members of local Bars, and in one or two cases special pensions have been provided.