In 1981, Isaiah Zimmerman published one of the earliest studies devoted to stress in the judiciary. He described the weight of responsibility and the professional isolation that so frequently accompanies the exercise of judging. Those reflections marked the beginning of a conversation that, over the following decades, gradually widened until it became a shared concern of the international judicial community.
The evidence accumulated over that period is compelling. National studies conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom, together with a global survey promoted within the framework of the United Nations and involving members of the judiciary from more than one hundred countries, reveal a consistent pattern: those who serve on the bench face intense workloads, repeated exposure to complex human conflicts, the unrelenting demands of decision-making, and a degree of professional isolation that few other public functions generate with the same intensity.
In Australia, empirical research conducted with judges and magistrates from five courts found elevated levels of psychological distress, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. At the global level, a survey carried out by the Global Judicial Integrity Network revealed that 92% of respondents indicated that judicial work causes them stress sometimes, frequently, or always, and that 83% considered the support available within their own judiciary to be insufficient.
More than forty years after Zimmerman first gave that reality a name, the international community took a significant step: the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 25 July as the International Day of Judicial Well-Being.
This is not merely another commemorative date. It expresses the recognition that the well-being of those who administer justice has ceased to be regarded as an exclusively individual concern and has become a shared institutional responsibility.
Judicial well-being acknowledges that a judiciary called upon to decide on the rights of others requires institutions capable of sustaining, throughout an entire professional life, the balance, integrity, and humanity that such responsibility demands. Building institutions that care for those entrusted with protecting the rights of others means creating the conditions under which the judicial function can be exercised with excellence over time.
Every 25 July reminds us of a simple truth: behind every judicial decision, there is a person.
Caring for those who judge is not a privilege or a concession. It is a way of caring for the quality of justice that our societies receive.
References
Zimmerman, I. M. (1981). Stress: What It Does to Judges and How It Can Be Lessened. The Judges’ Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 18–22.
Schrever, C., Hulbert, C., & Sourdin, T. (2019). The Psychological Impact of Judicial Work: Australia’s First Empirical Research Measuring Judicial Stress and Wellbeing. Journal of Judicial Administration, 28(3), 141–168.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) / Global Judicial Integrity Network. (2022). Exploring Linkages between Judicial Well-Being and Judicial Integrity: Report on the Global Survey Conducted by the Global Judicial Integrity Network.
United Nations General Assembly. Resolution A/RES/79/266 (2025), proclaiming 25 July as the International Day of Judicial Well-Being.