What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50?
“Your Honor”.
Fact is, some judges are a lot smarter than others.
But under English-speaking law jurisprudence, every one of them is considered to be a lawyer.
The Swiss do it a little more shrewdly. Many of the individuals they put on the judge’s bench, according to the Swiss Civil Code, are not by training or vocation a lawyer, but a layman to whom the lawyers arguing the case must put their words into simple enough terms that the meaning is clear to even someone with no legal training. This has vastly complicated understanding of Swiss law, but the upshot is that getting entangled in the Swiss Civil Code is a nightmare for foreigners, though the Swiss seem to navigate the system well. Local custom and law prevails in the court, with references to complicated legal theories being flatly discarded by the sitting judge.
There is a Latin phrase carved into the portal of the Federal Court in Berne, “Dei proventia et hominum confusione Helvetia regitur” (The providence of God and the confusion of man rules Helvetia).
At least the Swiss are realistic about the power and limitations of the law.