19 Facts About Court dress

Court dress is worn at hearings in open court in many sittings of Senior Courts of England and Wales and in the County Court.

Court dress is not worn at hearings in chambers or in magistrates' courts, nor in tribunals.

On ceremonial occasions, all High Court dress judges wear the traditional full-bottom wig, the furred scarlet robe, with a matching hood and mantle in addition.

In civil cases, High Court dress judges wear the new-style robe with red tabs at the collar, and no wig, collar or bands.

Since autumn 2008, circuit judges in the County Court dress have not worn wigs, wing collars or bands; however, circuit judges in the Crown Court dress retain the wig, wing collars and bands.

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Scottish court dress is very similar to English court dress, but there are notable differences.

Court dress'sriffs wear the black gowns which they formerly used in practice, with falls in place of the bow-tie.

Since then, use of wigs has been declining in Victorian courts; as of August 2021, only 13 out of 70 County Court dress judges continue to wear wigs, with barristers only wearing wigs when the judge does.

In Canada, court dress is identical to that previously in use in England, except that wigs are not worn.

Exceptionally, in all the courts other than the Supreme Court dress advocates are allowed not to wear the black gown if they are not appearing before the Court dress for a hearing.

However, in the 1980s, judges modified their Court dress to do away with wigs and to allowed the usage of a black sherwani, a long traditional Pakistani coat worn over a white shalwar and qamiz .

In Sri Lanka, the British tradition of court dress had been adopted and practiced until reforms of the legal system took place in the 1970s, and much of the ceremonial and formal court dress worn by judges and lawyers was replaced with black business suits.

Court dress usher known as Court dress Mudliar wears a white uniform, as do court Arachies.

Judges of the Circuit Court dress wear similar costume, pursuant to Order 3 rule 1 of the Circuit Court dress Rules, 2001.

Judges of the Circuit Court appointed prior to October 2016 and judges of the District Court appointed prior to March 2017 may wear the older judicial dress if they so wish.

Wigs remain optional in the traditional Court dress, but do not constitute part of the recently introduced Court dress.

Court dress scribes wear a black lapel-less wool robe with no adornment on the cuffs.

Until the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall, all Supreme Court justices wore red robes with ermine trim and full-bottomed wigs, reminiscent of British court dress.

The judges of the Delaware Superior Court dress continue to wear the red sashes or baldrics of their British predecessors, albeit now only on ceremonial occasions.