'Judgecraft and the art of rhetoric: Focus - Weaknesses - Challenges - Ethics'
Author: Judge Silvio Meli
Publisher: Kite Group / 2026
Pages: 162
A few days before his passing, Judge Silvio Meli published his final book - Judgecraft and the art of rhetoric: Focus - Weaknesses - Challenges - Ethics. I commemorate his memory by celebrating his latest book on judgecraft and rhetoric. Judge Meli must be commended for his originality in pursuing a study of these extremely interesting subjects for the purpose of this pioneering effort that unravels to the reader two novel institutes that, although well familiar with the judicial and legal professions abroad, are being brought to light locally through this seminal opus thereby filling an important gap in extant Maltese legal literature.
This book is a timely, and very insightful, study that combines two separate and distinct legal institutes, one a craft - judgecraft, the other an art - rhetoric. Notwithstanding their differences, both subjects require the person who employs them to exercise an element of skill and creativity. These creative skills, that have to be developed over time, are what distinguish respectively a seasoned member of the judiciary or a practising advocate, on the one hand, and a new appointee to judicial office or a new advocate, on the other. Contrary to continental Europe, in Malta there are no mandatory rigorous course programmes and exams designed for judicial appointment meaning that both judicial training and skill development must be attained, not prior to but, after judicial appointment.
Judge Meli divides judgecraft in two principal parts: one ethical/normative/regulatory; the other, skills based. Under the first department of judgecraft, Judge Meli introspects the Code of Ethics for Members of the Judiciary approved by the Commission for the Administration of Justice, when discussing the ethical/normative/regulatory aspect of judgecraft, that is the main - though not exclusive - instrument that establishes high standards of office for the judiciary, while under the second department he explains the creative skills that a member of the judiciary must master in the performance of judicial duties.
Until a few decades ago, judgecraft was never passed on from one generation of judiciary to another in a formal way. But with the establishment of the Judicial Studies Committee, judgecraft has been institutionally organised and co-ordinated; and so should it be. The Judicial Studies Committee - of which Judge Meli also served as deputy chair for many years together with Judge Joseph D. Camilleri as its chair - has provided a valid backbone to judgecraft from a theoretical and practical perspective. Apart from the training programmes, suffice it here to mention the judicial mentoring scheme in terms of which a new member of the judiciary teams up with a sitting seasoned member of the judiciary for the first few months after appointment to learn the hidden secret internal workings of the judiciary. For it is one thing to be a practising lawyer and totally another to migrate from the profession to the bench. This migration requires the acquisition of new skills, knowledge, training, and outlook that cannot be acquired in day one after one's judicial appointment. It is a learning process.
Undoubtedly, Judge Meli has all the requisite skills to write upon judgecraft in view of his holding the office of magistrate, judge, chair of the Commission for Fair Trading, deputy chair of the Judicial Studies Committee, and multiple legal publications to his credit.
Apart from a thorough analysis of the Code of Ethics for Members of the Judiciary that is conveniently appended to this book, Judge Meli discusses legal techniques, practical wisdom, and moral responsibility resorted to by the judiciary in their day-to-day administration of justice. He provides several eye openers for incumbent and, more importantly, prospective members of the judiciary on how to exercise properly high judicial office in a very complex sector of the proper administration of justice. This book is very instructive to prospective applicants for judicial office as it illustrates the duties that they will be called upon to perform and the continuous professional development in terms of doctrine and practical skills that they will be called to undertake once appointed to office. If one considers oneself not up to scratch for judicial office, for the burdens are not light, s/he can pursue alternative employment before even applying for the job.
Judgecraft is not only about writing diligent, objective, just, and learned judgments. It is also about how the members of the judiciary behave in court, for instance, whether the judge adopts an intimidating attitude towards legal counsel, deprives the latter from pleading their case adequately, looks down upon them, and so on. The judge not only deals with the lawyering profession but also with witnesses, parties to a suit, court experts, translators/interpreters, support staff, civil servants of all grades, and others. Hence, even in these human relations, the judge has to be courteous, polite, humane, proper, decent, ethical, and responsible. The judge should: (a) not therefore portray him/herself as an absolute despot but needs to empathise with all the categories of persons with whom s/he comes in daily contact; (b) understand their case; (c) provide support thereto always within the confines of the law; and, overall, (d) exercise a fatherly or motherly approach rather than being rigid, doctrinaire and detached from reality. All these - and other skills - are imparted in judgecraft sessions.
Rhetoric is not a craft but an art. It is the second branch of the law that is discussed in this publication. Judgecraft and rhetoric taken together, strictly speaking, are two different legal tools or instruments deployed respectively by members of the judiciary and the legal profession in the execution of their judicial or professional duties, in the first case, by the judiciary, in the second, by the advocacy profession. What rhetoric is for lawyers, judgecraft is for the judiciary.
Admittedly, rhetoric is one of the skills that a practising advocate appearing before a court, tribunal, or other quasi-judicial authority should acquaint him/herself with extremely well. The skilled advocate is not only learned in the law - undoubtedly an indispensable professional requirement - who can cite statutes, case law, legal principles, juristic writings, customs, and other legal literature/documents while knowing them like the back of his or her hand but also in lawyering skills.
Rhetoric is one such lawyering skill. For it is useless, in the forum, to know it all without, first, being able to communicate successfully and in a meaningful way all that you know clearly, concisely, and intelligibly, and second, to be able to produce convincing argumentation that conclusively leads to persuade the decision-maker, normally a court or tribunal, of the veracity of your submission. Rhetoric is one such lawyering skill that overlaps harmoniously with the rest. In the case of the judiciary, who more often than not remain silent during court proceedings leaving the lawyers to take the lead, rhetoric has never been a key tool for the judiciary. But this does not mean that the judiciary should be averse or neutral thereto. Knowledge of rhetoric by the judiciary enables them to appreciate better the oral pleadings of legal counsel. On the contrary, judgecraft is of paramount essence, indispensable, foundational for a member of the judiciary as it regulates completely his or her entire behaviour in and out of court; how to draft a court judgment; how to deal with vulnerable persons (minors, senior citizens, victims of crime, minorities, delinquent-victims, and others) during the whole iter of court proceedings; what literature to consult; what weight to give to diverse sources of the law; how to regulate court proceedings; how to allocate time; how to manage cases and people; how to discriminate between one procedure and another; and the like. Most of these matters are not necessarily learnt through books but through forensic practice.
Rhetoric is, and has been, a subject taught for centuries surely dating back to the times of the Greeks. We read how St Augustine was exceptionally well grounded in the skill of rhetoric, used it profusely in his preaching ministry, wrote about it in his first three Books of the Christian Doctrine, and mastered this skill outstandingly. This implies that rhetoric is not a purely legal tool. Historically and contemporarily, it continues to be used by different human disciplines of knowledge - philosophy, theology, law, literature, performing arts, if not others as well. Nevertheless, from all these disciplines it is within the forum that extensive, repetitive, and daily occurrence is made thereof.
Judge Meli traces its origin in the discipline of law to 467 BC where, in Syracuse, Corax and Tisias were the pioneers to have redacted rhetorical teaching techniques. In philosophy, Plato and Aristotle wrote on the subject with the Greek philosopher Empedocles being reputed as its founding Father. Rhetoric. It is employed not simply to demonstrate their mastery of legal principles and of the art of public speaking - as is the case of oratory - but, more importantly, how skilled they are in persuading their respective audiences of the soundness of their arguments to the extent of convincing their listeners or readers of their argument's flawless correctness. Hence, rhetoric is not about speaking beautifully, articulately, and flowery while attempting to impress their audience by one's public speaking superiority and audacity but in persuading (even at times, a doubting Thomas) the decision maker - in our case a member of the judiciary - on the precision, correctness, and forcefulness of the argument that a rhetorician can canvass.
As Judge Meli defines it: "Rhetoric is essentially the art of persuasion - that process that influences third parties to change their ideas, beliefs, and opinions, once they are freely persuaded to do so by their interlocutor." Further: "Rhetoric is therefore a linguistic technique that writers and speakers use to effectively inform, persuade, and motivate, their readers and audiences."
In reading this work, one should not run away with the idea that at the forum rhetorical skills by themselves suffice to win a case. The power of persuasion must be grounded on sound research, well construed argumentation that is founded on logic, non-recourse to fallacies, and - most important of all - to seek the truth and justice. In this connection, Judge Meli refers to the importance of grammar, logic and rhetoric (the trivium), and the applicability of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium) to the study of rhetoric. In other words, a rhetorician must not only be well spoken but cultured as well. The five canons of rhetoric that in classical times were referred to as: (i) identifying the main theme, (ii) the organisation of the subject matter, (iii) the linguistic style used, (iv) memory, and (v) the delivery of the speech, can also be exported to other non-public speaking dimensions of human communication such as literary writing. Indeed, rhetoric is a linguistic communication tool that is premised on language, words, persuasion, and the art of compromise.
Judge Meli is a prolific jurist. The latest opus that he has just penned is the current one on judgecraft and rhetoric that is not only addressed to a legal audience but is also useful to aspiring members of the judiciary and sitting judges and magistrates in the very early stages of their judicial career and to politicians, orators, public speakers, clergy, laity, and other persons who delight in making a convincing argument. From a legal perspective this book is indispensable reading to the legal profession and to students of law.
Kevin Aquilina is Professor of Law at the Faculty of Laws of the University of Malta