Letter to a judge

Conor Bourke

Hi all,

I have a quick question and I hope this is the correct place to ask. I apologise if this has been asked before, or if it's blindingly obvious but I just want to make sure I'm altogether correct.

I need to write a letter to a judge and I wish to know how to adress him correctly. On the first line of the envelope, do I write "The honorable Judge XXXX" and then salute him in the first line of the letter as "Dear Judge XXXX"?

This seemed to be the most common advice on google, but the answers all came from American sites so I just wanted to be sure that this is appropriate for an Irish judge.

Thanks in advance,

Alaskimo-cake

dats_right

Article 34.1 of the Constitution states: "Justice shall be administered in courts established by law by judges appointed in the manner provided by this Constitution, and, save in such special and limited cases as may be prescribed by law, shall be administered in public."

I can't think of too many reasons why somebody would need to correspond with a Judge directly. If you wish to address the Judge in respect of a case it would be totally inappropriate to write directly to the Judge, anything you need to say should be said in open Court.

Kosseegan

You should not write to a judge concerning a matter before the courts. If you are inviting a judge to come and judge a debating competition, it depends of the level of Court to which the Judge belongs. In all cases it is better to address the letter to the clerk or registrar of the Court for the attention of the Judge.

coylemj

It might have been wise to fend off that first response in advance by saying why you want to write to the judge. On the assumption that you're inviting him to your schools debating final this is how to do it....

The form of address for the envelope you can find by looking up the judge on this list and replicate the format...

http://www.courts.ie/courts.ie/library3.nsf/pagecurrent/646E98A7939A4C65802576D9005652F8?opendocument&l=en

and I wouldn't worry too much about how to kick off the letter, I'm sure 'Dear Judge Bloggs' would be ok.

Conor Bourke

The reason I'm writing to this judge is on the advice of the court clerk.

To cut a long story short, an incident occured outside our family home last September, unbeknown to us. We later heard some scant details, and the rest became apparent when we read a local newspaper report on the case.
There was an RTA outside our house on the night that my brother's removal was taking place. The occupants of the car were extremely drunk and were apprehended outside our house by Gardai who were on traffic duty due to the volume of people and vehicles in the vicinity. The occupants proceeded to become very loud and abusive and upset many of the mourners.
The driver is to be dealt with at a later date.

The judge in this case gave the boys in question a severe dressing-down over their behaviour and has requested them to have certain amounts of money for charity with them in court in April. Our family would like to request that the money they present would be donated to the charity we chose in lieu of flowers.

As I said, the clerk advised us to write this letter, so that's what I'm about to do.

Thank you,

Alaskimo-cake

Reloc8

Write the letter to the prosecuting garda saying that this is so.

Turn up in court in April and be willing to say so.

You shouldn't write the letter.

Alaskimo-cake

Alaskimo-cake wrote: »

As I said, the clerk advised us to write this letter, so that's what I'm about to do.

Thank you,

Alaskimo-cake

Do not write the letter. Do as Reloc8 said.

Kosseegan

Alaskimo-cake wrote: »

As I said, the clerk advised us to write this letter, so that's what I'm about to do.

Thank you,

Alaskimo-cake

The letter should be addressed to the clerk for the attention of the Judge.

coylemj

+1 Write to the judge via the clerk. The clerk will not pass the letter to the judge if you say anything he (the judge) might consider inappropriate so using him (the clerk) as a filter will ensure that nobody will get upset.

It would not be appropriate for you or a member of your family to turn up and make this declaration in open court, you have no standing in this case so this type of issue is normally dealt with by a letter, that's why the clerk told you to write a letter.

By 'no standing' I mean that you have no formal role in the court case, you are not prosecuting the case and you are not the injured party (the public generally is the injured party in a case of drunk and disorderly) so the judge would be on shaky ground to call you up in court and ask you where you want the 'donation' to go, hence he and the clerk would probably prefer you to communicate your preference in a letter.

The judge probably won't even see the letter. When the case is called and the defendants' solicitor stands up, the clerk will whisper to the judge that the OP's family have requested that charity 'X' receive the donation. What will then happen is that the defendants or their solicitor will hand over a cheque or cash to the District Court 'poor box' and someone in the clerk's office will lash a cheque off to the nominated charity in the following few days.

Sempai

Good idea by the OP. what the last posters said was right. I hope the Judge considers that and the charity will receive a generous donation and condolences on loss of your brother.

Conor Bourke

coylemj wrote: »

.

It would not be appropriate for you or a member of your family to turn up and make this declaration in open court, you have no standing in this case so this type of issue is normally dealt with by a letter, that's why the clerk told you to write a letter.

That's exactly what I thought, we have no desire to be there in court when they re-appear, it was bad luck that they ended up outside our house, there was no malicious agenda on their part (even though what they did was despicable).
We'd just like to see the money go to a charity which was close to my brother's heart and believed that a letter would be the most appropriate way to express this wish.

Thanks to all for the input.