Commonwealth countries, including Bermuda, may be on the way out. Judges and barristers, reports Gemini News Service, are increasingly shedding traditional attire. Now even England, where wigs and gowns originated more than two centuries ago, is debating the case for more modern dress.

British author Evelyn Waugh put his finger on it, gleefully observing how it is "very hard for a man with a wig to keep order''.

The heartlessly brilliant novelist was referring to balding teachers with a penchant for toupees, but his words are being remembered for their relevance to an issue now gripping an allied profession.

That profession is the law, and the issue is whether judges and barristers should make the final leap from the 18th to the 21st century by abandoning their bygone wigs and gowns and adopting contemporary clothes in court.

The question has become an issue since the two most senior judicial figures in England and Wales have now declared themselves in favour of more modern, simple legal attire.

In a seemingly unprecedented move, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, have thrown the matter open to public debate.

The reform-minded pair want to hear the views of all sane adults from prosecution counsel to prisoners, from the innocent and the guilty alike, before the end of the year.

One outcome can be predicted with certainty -- the two law lords are going to be deluged with advice and opinions from far and wide.

Reactionaries are horrified to think that the end may be in sight for the picturesque panoply of judges' robes -- the Lord Chancellor's own gold-decked black damask, the scarlet-and-armine of the High Court's "red judges,'' the fur-trimmed violet of the circuit judiciary -- to say nothing of full-bottomed wigs, knee-breeches, lace jabots and silver-buckled shoes.

Opponents of pomp, ceremony and the arcane can hardly wait for the demise of juridical uniforms, including the short wigs customarily worn by barristers -- and fashioned in well-curled style from that equally traditional material, horsehair -- along with the "black cap,'' the silk triangle which a judge dons when passing the death sentence (retained on Statute in Britain for treason and piracy with violence; the last set of working gallons, at Wandsworth Prison in London, is tested every six months).

The critics contend that such trappings are anachronistic and unnecessarily intimidating, reinforcing suspicions that the law is remote from and out-of-touch with ordinary people it exists to serve, also that justice is less accessible than it should be.

Lords Mackay and Taylor are already showing sympathy with such views. They say that what matters to the public is the quality of justice -- and that this does not appear to be enhanced if those involved give an impression of wishing to live in another age.

The matter may not generate as much heat as that of whether the Duchess of York -- "Fergie'' -- should be snapped cavorting au naturelle in St Tropez, but will reverberate more widely.

For British court dress was part of the baggage exported with British-style justice in colonial days to all countries within the old Empire -- and it lingers on in a perhaps surprising number of Commonwealth nations.

Singapore courts retain wigs and robes. So, too, does the Supreme Court in Bermuda. And the High Court in New Zealand (though updating is sought there as well). And the courts of New South Wales in Australia.

In the world's second-largest country -- Canada -- lawyers appear wig-less in federal and provincial courts alike. British Columbia has actually made the wearing of wigs in its courts a punishable offence. Jurists are, however, free to wear gowns in all courtrooms.

Wigs have likewise been discarded in the Republic of India, though judges still wear robes. Barristers favour black coats and white trousers.

Changes of the kind proposed in Britain "never happen in a vacuum'', declares Jeremy Pope, director of the Commonwealth Secretariat's legal department.

The trend is more and more towards greater informality in general and it is "all one way ... I am not aware of anyone who has reinstated wigs and robes.'' Yet even in the hottest climates, Pope adds, "enormous importance'' is still attached to ceremonial robes and full-bottomed wigs (albeit at nearly $1,600 a time). Zambia and certain Australia states are cases in point.

But are they not frightfully uncomfortable in temperatures that cause horses to sweat and ladies to glow? "I think you can draw the relevant inference, sister,'' Comments a Jamaican Government spokesman.

The Commonwealth Lawyers Association, representing 120 law societies and 700 individual jurists, says it has not so far discussed the question of court attire.

"We haven't considered it as an issue because every country has a different way of looking at it,'' says an official. "I don't think that what happens in England and Wales will affect other countries. They'll follow their own course.'' This will centre not on whether a male judge looks better in historic robes than a grey suit, or a wig-adorned female barrister resembles "a Botticelli angel'' -- one informal justification -- but on whether such turnouts emphasise the identity, dignity and authority of individual courts.

The risk is that they "will look ridiculous,'' says Pope.

When a sub-tropical state achieved independence, its Chief Justice was kitted out in full regalia -- until the Attorney-General said: "Have you asked yourself why so many passengers from cruise ships visit your court? It's because they want to see a black man wearing a grey wig'' ...