For whatever reason, judges are accorded the type of respect, that even the President of the United States or our own parents are not privileged with. That is to say, in a court of law, judges are typically expected to be addressed as “your honor,” but the President of the United States, as exemplified by our founding father, President Washington, insisted on nothing more than the title of Mr. President. So too, our parents are not ever addressed as something akin to “your lady” or “your lord”; so then, to believe that somehow a judge, should be addressed as something that sounds superior to our parents or to the President of the United States is fundamentally unsound.
In this country, while it is a part of civil discourse, to deal with one another in a polite manner, that respects the other, it has to be said, that “your honor” seems to clearly be not in accordance with a country that specifically believes as per its Constitution that “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States…” Indeed, it is hard to see a title such as “your honor” as anything other than what stands in as a title of nobility, and therefore this should not be part of our justice system, as there are plenty of alternatives to “your honor” which would still demonstrate respect for the judge, but would not require those judges to be addressed as “your honor” such as Sir or Madam, Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Judge, or if they have a doctorate, as Dr. Judge.
While there needs to be proper decorum in a courtroom, it is not necessary though that a judge need be addressed as “your honor,” as if any other reasonable salutation is considered to be not respectful enough. Those who are our court judges are not of more importance than our parents, or of the President of the United States, or many other professions of importance, in which none of those people are ever addressed as “your honor” or its equivalency.
Additionally, a courtroom should never be a place in which potentially those that are in front of that judge, aren’t judged via the merits of the case, equally applied, but rather are judged by their respect or disrespect to the judge, and of which the facts of the case then are almost an irrelevancy. Those who are judges should simply be dealt with in a professional manner, and therefore need not be addressed in a way that seemingly confers onto them, the impression of nobility when there are no noble positions within America. After all, we live in a nation that believes that it should be governed by the people, for the people, and of the people, with equality for all, of which, each person therefore has the same legal rights, and nobody, no matter how educated or esteemed, should be seen as being somehow above the other or the law, but rather, all are under the same law, even those that currently answer to “your honor.”