discipline judges and magistrates.

The suggestion comes after news some lawyers have been calling for the Bar to recommend maverick Magistrate Ed King be kicked off the bench.

They say Mr. King is rude to both lawyers and the public, but a motion to urge Governor Thorold Masefield to sack Mr. King has been adjourned until May 17 to let lawyers not present at last week's meeting have their say.

Mr. Moniz said: "There are differences obviously between certain members of the Bar and Mr. King. This has been going on for four or five years now.'' But he added: "It was very specific to ask the Governor to remove Mr. King.

You don't normally suggest punishment in the indictment.'' He said lawyers who didn't appear in Magistrates Court weren't totally comfortable with such draconian measures.

He said: "You don't have to be as bold in stating what has to be done.

"A number of people were uncomfortable with the wording and they would be more likely to vote for it if it was not quite so pointed.'' Bar Assoc. ponders body to select, discipline judges He said currently the Governor only had the power to remove misbehaving members of the bench and it was time another system was put in place.

"The Bar has long advocated a formal procedure to make complaints about judges and magistrates.

"There is no particular procedure.'' He said Britain was looking at setting up assessment centres to run the rule over candidates for the bench.

"There's tests and interviews. They are concerned about this in the UK.'' "We need some sort of judicial service commission to look at appointments and complaints.'' "You get complaints and nothing is done about them.'' He said the philosophy that judges were appointed for life to make them independent meant it was difficult to discipline them.

He said John Judge and Roger Garfield had ruffled a lot of feathers during their stints on the bench.

Mr. Moniz admitted it was hard to attract lawyers to make the step up.

He welcomed Government's plans to increase salaries on the bench to make the job more attractive.

But Mr. Moniz said even if you could match salaries in private practice there were still other things which put people off from making the switch.

He said: "You have to give up a lot of your social life as a result of having to be seen to be independent.

"A lot of lawyers like doing their own thing.''