Of Judicature — Francis Bacon

Every Mumbai student has watched a teacher settle a classroom fight: one who hears both sides before deciding feels fair, and one who has made up their mind before anyone speaks does not. Now make the stakes a man's land, his liberty or his life. Francis Bacon, a lawyer who rose to be Lord Chancellor of England, wrote Of Judicature as a short job description for judges. What is a judge actually for, whom does a judge owe duties to, and where does a judge's power stop?

In two minutes

In Of Judicature, Bacon says a judge's office is to declare and interpret the law, not to make it, and then sets out the judge's duties in four directions — to the parties, to the advocates, to the clerks and officers of the court, and to the sovereign and state — with integrity as the judge's one indispensable virtue.

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