As I have frequently posted – e.g. here -, the image of a gavel is often used in British and German newspapers to illustrate a court judgment. But UK and German judges don’t use gavels. Judges in the USA use them. In the UK, the gavel or hammer is what an auctioneer uses.

I don’t suppose everyone would understand how irritating it is to keep seeing this totally inappropriate image. But one site that does is Inappropriate Gavels. They tweet at @igavels too, and there’s no lack of examples in the press.

It strikes me that the gavel is a good image to use – stock image companies are full of them. alamy reports 28.294 images of gavels. So we need an alternative image.

The only commonly used image for a court decision apart from gavels is the scales of justice, sometimes held by a woman. alamy seems to have 6,937 of those. Maybe we should be encouraging good images of the scales of justice if we are to eradicate the gavel.

Here’s a Guardian article on Inappropriate Gavels, with comments, from the year 2015: Gavel bashing: why banging in court on TV is a serious factual offence.