On the twenty fifth of July 2025 the world observed the inaugural International Day for Judicial Wellbeing declared by the United Nations. This date honours the psychological and emotional burdens carried by judges who dispense decisions under intense scrutiny and weighty consequences. Their wellbeing surely matters. Yet while we turn our compassion toward the bench we must also ask an essential question.
What about the wellbeing of every individual who experiences the judiciary?
Judges bear the gavel but it is the public who carry the pain.
People enter courts already fractured by trauma, conflict or fear. Survivors of intimate partner abuse, mothers fighting for their children, defendants lacking resources, terrified witnesses and children called to testify. They come seeking protection, resolution or vindication but too often leave with deeper scars.
A System That Has Forgotten the Soul
Historically justice was communal. Tribal elders mediated disputes through ritual and restoration. Communities sought repair rather than retribution. Anthropologists observe that as societies institutionalised, justice transformed into an adversarial mechanism that privileges procedure over empathy. Courts have replaced human connection with legal jargon and structure over soul. Those already vulnerable often suffer most in this cold transactional system.
The Wellness Wheel Turned Upside Down
When a person becomes entangled with the judiciary their emotional, physical, social, financial, spiritual and intellectual wellbeing may all be shattered. Spain in 2020 published a study showing individuals in civil and family litigation experienced severe psychological distress. Anxiety, insomnia, depressive symptoms and even suicidal ideation were common with longer legal battles linked to more severe breakdown.
In custody cases, especially following intimate partner abuse, around fifty percent of parents report clinical depression. Many survivors describe reliving violence on the stand as they recount traumatic details to judges who may minimise or doubt their experience. Some courts mislabel alienators as protective, allowing abusive parents continued access to children. For these survivors the legal system becomes secondary trauma.
Children suffer too. Studies measuring heart rate and stress levels, show elevated physiological anxiety in waiting rooms and testimony chambers. Many develop long term behavioural issues, trust deficits and emotional dysregulation. Their childhood becomes court centred rather than nurturing.
The physical signs of litigation stress include hypertension, panic attacks, chronic pain, digestive disorders, insomnia and immune suppression. Litigation Stress Syndrome is a recognised condition where sustained legal pressure alters neurochemistry, making individuals vulnerable to chronic illness. Emotional numbness, breakdown of relationships, career sabotage and fear become part of daily life.
Financial devastation is also common. Court battles drain savings, force asset sales, incur crippling debt and derail careers. Families lose identity, purpose and faith in institutions. For some post‑traumatic growth feels impossible.
Even jurors endure harm. In England and Wales nearly half of jurors in serious criminal trials reported nightmares, flashbacks and emotional intrusion. The civic duty becomes trauma and the system offers no debrief or counselling.
Legal professionals are not unscathed either. In Australia one third of judges were found to suffer moderate to high psychological distress. Many manifest burnout, moral injury, emotional exhaustion, diminished empathy and eruptions of anger. Lawyers, social workers and mediators often face compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout in isolation without support.
Litigation Abuse and Judiciary Persecution
While some legal professionals act ethically, many others deploy strategies that amount to litigational abuse, infringing on public wellbeing. Vexatious litigation is a powerful example. In several jurisdictions, frivolous or repetitive legal actions used solely to harass or bankrupt an adversary are considered abuse of process. SLAPP suits, strategic lawsuits against public participation, are used by powerful individuals or corporations to silence critics through intimidation, mounting costs and exhaustion, not genuine legal dispute. These tactics aim to crush public voices, not resolve legitimate grievances.
In South Africa the Constitutional Court recognised SLAPP suits as an abuse of process and the court confirmed that defamation claims designed to silence activists, fit that pattern. These suits impose enormous emotional and financial strain regardless of merit.
In other systems lawyers adopt the so‑called Stalingrad defence intentionally, delaying processes, appealing every ruling and refusing normal procedure. This tactic drains public resources, time and hope. One case involving South Africa’s public protector, reportedly cost taxpayers R160 million (roughly US$8.5 million) in abuses of the legal system by powerful officials dragging out litigation indefinitely.
Mass tort litigation in the US reveals other exploitative tactics. The “Trial lawyer playbook” includes third‑party litigation financing large scale advertising to recruit plaintiffs, questionable expert testimony or junk science. In 2024 over US$2.5 billion was spent on 27 million legal advertisements. These tactics result in economic and emotional damage to ordinary people coerced into claims or overwhelmed by the cost of failing to acquiesce.
Some law firms engage high‑pressure tactics behind the scenes. Victims represented by a high profile attorney reported feeling ignored, pressured into signing non-disclosure or arbitration agreements, favouring their alleged perpetrators. Those agreements silence survivors and inflict emotional harm in the name of legal efficiency. Victims described being scolded, bullied and traded for publicity and money, rather than cared for as clients who had suffered trauma.
Beyond lawyers some judges and magistrates also abuse their power. In New York in 2024 over 3 300 complaints were submitted to the state commission for judicial conduct, a 37% increase over five years, yet very few resulted in discipline. One judge was accused of threatening Black teens, another resigned following allegations of inappropriate remarks. A culture of complaints being covered up contributes to public distrust and emotional damage to parties who experienced bias, intimidation or unfair rulings.
Research including a 2023 survey experiment shows that when judges engage in discriminatory misconduct even outside the courtroom they are perceived as threats to the rights of marginalised groups and less able to rule fairly. Public perception matters because it affects legitimacy, trust and wellbeing for litigants especially from minorities.
Judicial systems that ignore or fail to remedy misconduct leave public victims stranded. A litigant whose case is harmed by a judge’s bias has no clear recourse even if the judge is removed. Appeals may be costly, time consuming or impossible if misconduct occurs at the highest court. The system simply fails those who bear the consequences.
A Call for Justice That Heals Not Hurts
This blog underscores a painful truth: the judiciary itself can pose a tremendous threat to public wellbeing. Powerful clients, lawyers or judges may deploy strategies that exploit privilege, process or prejudice at the expense of ordinary citizens. We must hold them accountable.
We still care for judges, professionals and staff exposed to trauma, but the public must not be left unprotected. Post‑traumatic growth is possible only when healing structures support everyone in the legal ecosystem.
We need trauma‑informed and anti‑retaliation reforms. We need early dismissal of SLAPP suits, safe child centric courtrooms and culture shifts away from adversarial aggression. We need public legal education, accessible complaint mechanisms, independent oversight of judges and mandatory emotional and financial support for litigants, jurors and survivors.
In Closing
The first International Day for Judicial Wellbeing is a milestone. It honours judges’ hidden burdens. It can also become a mirror for us all. A moment to confront how justice too often harms rather than heals.
For justice to be truly just it must not just rule fairly. It must also care deeply because when people enter the court they come burdened with heartbreak, trauma, fear and fragile hope. If the system cannot see that, it fails every one of us.
Let this day be the start of real change. Let it signal a justice system that works to heal not harm. Let it offer dignity, care and protection to all it touches because justice should leave no one behind.