Australian lawyers wrangle over wigs

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

SYDNEY (AFP) — To wear or not to wear, that is the question confronting some of Australia's legal community as they struggle to balance the judicial scales on whether they should don traditional wigs in court.

The practice of judges and barristers wearing a horsehair head-covering in court, inherited from the British, has fallen from favour in recent years.

In Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, judges are no longer required to wear wigs in civil trials, while barristers in civil cases have largely tossed the habit out on its head.

But in the southern state of Victoria, where all civil trials are still held before a jury, the legal community is finding it harder to let go of its white ringlets.

Several judges in the Victorian County...