With regard to judges, and Federal Court Judges especially, we cannot proceed on the lines of the normal administrative services. We require top men in the administrative services. Nevertheless, the type of work that a judge does is somewhat different. It is, in a sense, less physically tiring. Thus a person normally, if he is a judge, does not have to face storm and fury so much as an administrative officer might have to. But at the same time it is highly responsible work, and in all countries, so far as I know, age-limits for judges are far higher. In fact there are none at all. In America the greatest judge that I believe the Supreme Court produced went on functioning till the age of ninety-two-Holmes-and he went on functioning extremely well up to the age of ninety-two for thirty or forty years running. If you go to the Privy Council of England I do not know what they are now, but some years back when I went there I saw patriarchs sitting there with long flowing beards; and their age might have been anything up to a hundred years, so far as looks were concerned. May be, you may over do this type of thing. But the point is we must not look upon this merely as a question of giving jobs to younger people. When you need the best men, obviously age cannot be a criterion. A young man may be exceedingly good, an old man may be bad. But the point is if an old man has experience and is thoroughly fit, mentally and otherwise, then it is unfortunate and it is a waste from the State’s point of view to push him aside, or force him to be pushed aside, and put in some one in his place who has neither the experience nor the talent, perhaps. We are going to require a fairly large number of High Court Judges and Supreme Court Judges. Of course the number of Supreme Court Judges will be rather limited. Nevertheless, there are going to be more and more openings, and the personnel at our disposal is somewhat limited. Judges presumably in future will come very largely from the bar and it will be for you to consider at a later stage what rules to frame so that we can get the best material from the bar for the High Court Federal Court Judges. It is important that these judges should be not only first-rate, but should be acknowledged to be first-rate in the country, and of the highest integrity, if necessary, people who can stand up against the executive government, and whoever may come in their way. Now, taking all these into consideration I feel that the suggestion made by the Drafting Committee with regard to Federal Court Judges, that the age-limit should be sixty-five, is by no means unfair, for it does not go beyond any reasonable age-limit that might be suggested. Many of us here are, as you are aware, dangerously near sixty or beyond it. Well, we still function, and function in a way which is far more exhausting and wearing than any High Court Judge can be. We are functioning presumably because in the kindness of your heart, in the country’s heart, you put up with us, or think us necessary. Whatever it be, you can change us and push us out if you do not like us. There is no age-limit. But the High Court Judges and Federal Court Judges should be outside political affairs of this type and outside party tactics and all the rest, and if they are fit, they should certainly, I think, be allowed to carry on. Of course every rule that you may frame may give rise to some difficulties and undesirable men may carry on. But a man appointed to the Federal Court is presumably one who has gone through an apprenticeship in the High Court somewhere. He cannot be absolutely bad, otherwise he would not have got there. He must have justified himself in a High Court as Chief Justice or something. So you are fairly assured that he is up to a certain standard. If so, let him continue. Otherwise the risk is greater, of pushing out a thoroughly competent man because of the age-limit, because he has attained the age of sixty. So I beg the House to accept the age-limit of 65 for Federal Court Judges that has been suggested.
