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Journalism of Courage
How is a judge to be judged? This is a central question before the nation, given the central role that judges play in governing society. But so sensitive is the issue, that successive governments have preferred to exhibit discretion rather than the valour required to confront it. Consequently, while the country has seen a great deal of theorising about judicial fallibility and the patent inability of existing procedures to address it, it has yet to put in place a satisfactory regime to bring errant judges to account, with the only attempt in the 55 years of the republic to impeach a judge alleged to be guilty of moral turpitude having ended as a sorry farce.
The Law Commission’s recent recommendation that a National Judicial Council be formed to take the necessary action against judges found guilty of various misdemeanours therefore needs to be taken seriously. Incidentally, this is not a new idea, although some fresh thinking appears to have gone into refining the procedures involved. Various committees and commissions in the past have, over the years, mulled over the issue. The Constitution Review Commission (CRC) even attempted to define judicial wrongdoing more clearly, in the belief that a statutory definition of such misconduct would make the punishing of it that much easier. The CRC had proposed the constituting of a statutory committee of judges to deal with complaints, one that would be empowered to recommend the punishment and even removal of judges found guilty.
It does nobody any good to pretend that the judicial fraternity is above reproach; a sacred brotherhood, no less, which cannot be subjected to the critical public gaze that is trained on the other two pillars of the constitutional edifice — the executive and the legislature. Such conscious blindness not only undermines the system of justice but the status of the men and women who preside over it. When Chief Justice S.P. Bharucha publicly decried, some years ago, the fact that 20 per cent of judges are corrupt, he was also voicing concern over the fact that this minority was bringing the entire judiciary into disrepute. It is therefore in the interests of the judges themselves to support the idea of a national judicial council and help it to come into being in as meaningful and efficient a way as possible.
