Open AccessThe Improvising Judge: An Interview with Her Honour Judge Patricia Smyth, Northern Ireland County Court
Author(s) -
Sara Ramshaw,
Seamus Mulholland
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
critical studies in improvisation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1712-0624
DOI - 10.21083/csieci.v12i1.3915
Subject(s) - improvisation , honour , realm , irish , bespoke , active listening , law , sociology , creativity , visual arts , political science , art , linguistics , philosophy , communication
Her Honour Judge Patricia Smyth (HHJ Smyth) was interviewed on Wednesday 22 June 2016 at the Newry Courthouse, Northern Ireland, by barrister Seamus Mulholland and legal academic Sara Ramshaw. HHJ Smyth was an invaluable contributor to the Into the Key of Law research project, volunteering as a project interviewee, focus group member and a panel participant at the “Just Improvisation: Enriching child protection law through musical techniques, discourses and pedagogies” Symposium at Queen’s University Belfast, 29 – 30 May 2015. In this interview, HHJ Smyth provides valuable insight into a variety of important issues, such as training judges to become better improvisers, the limits of improvisation
in, particularly, Northern Irish family law, the existing structures or skills that make improvisation possible and, perhaps most importantly, the importance of creativity, “bespoke solutions”, and attentive or deep listening in the family law realm.