Letter: should sheriffs be available by phone?

I sympathise with the difficulties described by Al Gordon (Journal, May 2016, 6), but I doubt whether the administration of justice would be improved by establishing informal contact between solicitors and judges by phone and email.

My discomfort with that proposition was sharpened by having read Mr Gordon’s letter immediately after Tom Marshall’s excellent Opinion piece on the Criminal Appeal Court (Journal, May 2016, 5), in which he quoted these words of Lord Neuberger, on the subject of the relationship between judges and professional lawyers: “The relationship should be one of mutual respect, trust and understanding, coupled with a suitable sense of distance and detachment.”

That sense of distance and detachment would be lost were we able to phone or email judges directly as and when we deemed it appropriate.