Treasury
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
VALEDICTORY FOR HER HONOUR JUDGE KORNER CMG QC Master Deborah Taylor (Reader and Presiding Judge, Southwark Crown Court), The Rt Hon Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, Master Ryder and Master Joanna Korner, 30 July 2021. Judge Taylor: Today, Southwark Crown Court says farewell to Her Honour Judge Korner, with our very best wishes for her future as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, her second home. Judge Korner has had a long and distinguished career, both at the Bar and as a judge in the English and international courts. She was appointed silk in 1993 and in 2004 was made a CMG, a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to international criminal law. I confess, that I had to look up CMG, not having one myself, obviously. I found out that the order is known in the civil service as ‘Call me God’, Mr Ryder if only we had known, all that time lost. But perhaps better not as even for someone as grounded as Judge Korner it might have gone to her head. During her career at the Criminal Bar, Judge Korner’s practice was in serious crime; in between three stints at The Hague, she was Senior Prosecuting Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal, for the former Yugoslavia, in cases involving genocide. Between 2004 and 2005, she was the Chief Prosecutor in the Tribunal for Bosnia and Herzegovina. When Judge Korner was appointed as Circuit judge in 2012, initially she sat at Snaresbrook. However, using transferable skills, no doubt gained from her experience of war crimes tribunals and personifying those current buzzwords ‘agile’ and ‘flexible’, Judge Korner took her opportunity, tunnelled her way out and came to Southwark – the pockets of her judicial robe still filled with the soil of north-east London. The work here at Southwark, whilst having international elements, has been rather different from her previous diet; but Judge Korner has shown her ability to deal with all seven deadly sins, and taken it in her stride, using skills honed dealing with crimes of genocide committed with all manner of violence and weapons of war, tackling multimillionpound frauds committed with the tap of a finger on a computer key or with finely forged financial instruments. My own first meeting with Judge Korner was a virtual one, in the pre-digital days before virtual was a thing; it was in the pages of a book. In 1998, Trevor Grove wrote The Juryman’s Tale, about his experience as foreman of a jury in a kidnapping case at the Central Criminal Court. Joanna Korner, Queen’s Counsel, as she then was, was prosecuting counsel, and the book gives us a snapshot of her at that time. Unsurprisingly, Mr Grove and his jury had nothing but praise for her, as was apparent from his description. Judge Korner must have a portrait in the attic, as in over 20 years, little has changed. She is still as he described her, tall and elegant, clever and intelligible, with the pre-Downton Abbey unfashionably posh voice, which he thought might put the jury off but did not.
Judge Korner goes to The Hague with an outstanding international reputation; around the world, advocates and judges in many jurisdictions have benefited over the years from training organised or delivered by Judge Korner in her work as Head of the International Faculty of the Advocacy Training Council, between 2005 and 2011, and as International Course Director of the Judicial College, between 2014 and 2017, in addition to her work on behalf of the Inner Temple. Unfortunately, the judges here at Southwark proved a step too far even for Judge Korner, so we totter on, wayward and untrained, lacking the benefits of her expertise. Unlike most valedictories, today does not mark the end of a career or a retirement but a new beginning. Judge Korner has been an exemplary judge at Southwark. It has been said that she has been known to express a view from time to time, and even occasionally a strong view; but we will all miss her straight talking, tempered always by great experience and her boundless good humour. The Hague lost a doughty and skilful prosecutor but will now regain a judge of outstanding quality. On behalf of all your fellow judges here at Southwark, we wish you every happiness in the sure knowledge of your success. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave: As the Recorder of Westminster has just elegantly outlined, Judge Korner has had a long and distinguished career at the Bar and as a judge in the English and international courts. At a time when most judges would be hanging up their wigs and getting out the box sets of season six and seven of Line of Duty to try and work out what really happened, Judge Korner is about to embark on a fifth decade of her career in the law. She is leaving us to take up her new and important role as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This has always seemed her destiny; it is as if the past four decades have been merely a dress rehearsal for the heavy mantle in The Hague which she is about to wear. Her Excellency Judge Joanna Korner CMG QC, as she now is, has a fine ring about it, does it not? This is because Joanna Korner is excellent. She is an excellent judge, an excellent lawyer, an excellent person of great integrity and judgment, and she has been an excellent friend and colleague to many of us here today. Judge Korner will make a very fine ambassador for this country and for the law.
Judge Korner is about to embark on a fifth decade of her career in the law. She is leaving us to take up her new and important role as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This has always seemed her destiny; it is as if the past four decades have been merely a dress rehearsal for the heavy mantle in The Hague which she is about to wear. 131
T
