Why do judges get August & September as holidays?

dinneenp

Hi,

Judges get August & September as holidays- https://www.courts.ie/content/high-court-law-terms

Christmas: 24th December to 6th January.

Easter: Monday of the week preceding Easter week to Saturday of Easter week.

Whitsun: Friday of the week preceding Whitsun to Saturday of Whitsun week.

Long vacation: 1st August to 30th September.

Why is this so? They're extremely well paid (€196k), there's a backlog for cases so why such a long break?

Ta,

Pa.

Those terms refer to the sitting days of the court, when physical court sittings occur on a full schedule. It's not indicative of judges' "holidays".

In fact there is at least one judge available to hear applications 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Judges don't sit every day during the term either. On certain days they go for training courses, other days they don't sit to allow them work on written judgments and so forth. There's far more to the job than merely sitting in a room and hearing cases. Space has to be made for that. The August/September period is really just August now. Many courts sit through September to hear urgent matters and the District Court has hearings all year round.

It's too simplistic to view it as "holiday time". That's not really what it is at all.

dinneenp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119238036#Comment_119238036

Fair enough, thanks for the info.

Do they get on call/overtime during August & September for urgent issues etc. or not?

RIt’s a salaried position, as far as I know there are no bonuses or overtime but I could be wrong. I’ve seen judges sit until 8/9pm without a break since 2pm. Just non-stop, high concentration work. I know of judges hearing applications at 1am in their living room because of the urgency.

In the Mark Tighe/John Delaney injunction case the court was sitting on St Patrick’s Day I think, on duty to hear applications whenever needed. I’m not saying judges don’t get good holidays, but the vast vast majority of them work very hard at a very difficult job.

Claw Hammer

The Judges get August and September as holidays because it is traditional. September is the harvest month. It is still less than teachers get.