Reconceiving Judicial Office Through a Labour Law Lens

Judges fulfil a fundamental constitutional role in democratic systems. Most research on judges, though, focuses on the public and constitutional significance of the judicial role, not the needs of individual judges. This article applies a labour law lens to help reconceive the judicial role in a way that balances the individual and collective needs of judges with the institutional and constitutional needs of the third arm of government, drawing on comparative analysis of Australia and the United Kingdom, and examples from common law countries. I argue that, while some progress has been made towards using labour law to structure and inform judicial roles, labour law offers new insights into how judges and judicial work might be supported. This may both assist judges in their individual capacity and support the judiciary as an institution. It therefore has significance for judges as individuals and the judiciary’s fundamental constitutional role