The concept of emotional labour describes the management of emotions as part of everyday work performance. Much of the research in this field has been in relation to jobs in the service sector where (mostly female) employees are required to shape their own feelings in order to make customers or clients feel at ease, comfortable or happy. There has been relatively little attention paid to the importance of emotional labour in professional occupations. This paper examines the emotional labour of magistrates in court. Magistrates must often regulate their own emotions and those of some court users, many of whom are not legally represented and who express a variety of emotions, including anger and distress, and experience social problems that may elicit emotions or emotional responses from the magistrate. The paper reports findings from interviews with over 40 magistrates throughout Australia and begins to address the significance of emotional labour for this branch of the judiciary.

The demeanor exhibited by a judge is a key element in criminal proceedings, especially in direct interactions with the defendant, defense representatives, and prosecutors. The judicial demeanor(s) displayed must meet the normative confines of the judicial role—primarily impartiality—within the practical constraints of long case lists, when interactions are subject to considerable time pressure. Drawing on findings from an extensive national court observation study, this article examines the varied demeanors displayed by magistrates—the presiding judicial officers—in Australia's lower courts. It explores the complex meanings of these demeanors, and considers how they may enhance or undermine the legitimacy of judicial authority.

This article examines the judgecraft required when judicial officers actively manage the time pressures created by long and unpredictable case lists. It considers the implications of this time management for the legitimate exercise of judicial authority. In particular, we focus on the strategy of altering the temporal sequence of the list by standing matters down and recalling them later in the list. This strategy, especially when initiated by the judicial officer, is analysed in light of the temporal goals of getting through the list on the day and moving cases along towards final resolution, and the ideological and practical requirements of legitimate judicial authority within the adversary system. The article is based on a court observation study of the general criminal list, concentrating on the role of the presiding judicial officer — the magistrate — in the lower courts of Australia. The research demonstrates that magistrates exercise considerable judgecraft which achieves temporal goals and can create space for a more engaged and therefore more legitimate decision-making process; however, their capacity to do so is limited by the judicial role and the roles allocated to others by conventional adversarial norms and practices.

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The dominant image of judicial authority is emotional detachment; however, judicial work involves emotion. This presents a challenge for researchers to investigate emotions where they are disavowed. Two projects, one in Australia and another in Sweden, use multiple sociological research methods to study judicial experience, expression, and management of emotion. In both projects, observational research examines judicial officers’ display of emotion in court, while interviews investigate judicial emotional experiences. Surveys in Australia identify emotions judicial officers generally find important in their work; in Sweden, shadowing allows researchers to investigate individual judicial emotion experiences and expression. Evaluating the different methods used demonstrates the limitations and effectiveness of particular research designs, the value of multiple methods and the challenges for researching emotion.