How the Lord President of the Court of Session in Edinburgh tried to interfere with my research for this book

The Justice Factory is the book the judges tried to ban. It lifts the veil on the character and outlook of the senior judges in Scotland, while explaining how they relate to the American and English traditions of judging. The reason for the attempted ban was that this is the first book to be published in the English-speaking world about the personality of judges and the practice of judging for which the primary source is the judges themselves. It is a novel attempt to see the rule of law and the threats to it from the point of view of those who have to defend it.

I reproduce below the memorandum which Lord Hamilton, then Lord President, circulated to the judges in Scotland. It is gratifying to note how many ignored him, which is why I have been able to publish this ground-breaking book on judicial thinking. In a more bureaucratic judiciary, such as the Scottish civil service appears to support, where judges are “accountable”, they would not have been able to act as they did. Imagine what would have happened to them in Russia today!