Premium Essay

To What Extent Are Judges Independent and Neutral'

In: Other Topics

Submitted By 09lsmith
Words 939
Pages 4
Judicial independence is concept that judges, in order to make fair decisions should be unaffected by government or any parliamentary pressures. They should be free from any influence from the executive and legislature. Similarly judicial neutrality is the idea that judges must put aside any personal bias in the courtroom and they must conduct themselves in an impartial way inside and outside the court. Judicial neutrality and independence are not only important to make fair and just decisions but they are also crucial to uphold democracy.

There are many ways in which judges can be seen to uphold their judicial independence. The very fact that judges are unelected, are not members of political parties thus upholding law not politics and are not trained by the government show that as far as politics is concerned the judges are very much removed. On the other hand although they are not directly involved in politics this does not mean that judges cannot hold political views, in fact most judges tend to hold politically conservative views. Furthermore it is almost impossible for judges to stay out of politics in its broadest sense. Every judgement can be seen as a political statement, this can be seen clearly in the case of Gillick, which showed that it is difficult for them to stay out of politics when they poses the power to make new laws. Politically judges are as far removed as possible, it would be difficult to find any other alternatives without removing judges rights to have political opinions altogether.

In order to keep judges out of touch with parliament, judges are paid from the consolidation fund. This is a sum of money that is the judges salary, hidden from parliaments eyes. In order to reduce the risk of parliamentary bribery, parliament cannot look or know how much each judge us paid. Also protecting judges is the 1701 Act of Settlement stating that

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Perception Of Knowledge Essay

...We live in a world where massive amount of information is presented in the forms of books, websites, and communications. Reception of knowledge is one of the ways information transfers, but some parts of information may be misunderstood and misinterpreted by people themselves, probably causing inaccurate reception and cognition. The reason why knowledge may be misinterpreted is that people’s thoughts or feelings may affect how objectively they judge and receive the knowledge. For the purpose of this essay, some key words should be defined in order to fit the context of this prompt. ‘Gaining knowledge’ will be interpreted as ‘ways people get and process information’. In order for us to accurately receive, interpret and understand knowledge, we first need to know the relationship between emotion and reason. Knowledge question 1: Does emotion help or hinder reason in the production of knowledge? For this knowledge question, ‘Reason’ will be interpreted as ‘the rational way people receive and understand information’ and ‘Emotion’ will be interpreted as ‘thoughts and feelings that may cause inaccurate reception and interpretation of information’. Emotion and reason make people intelligent and unique among all the organisms in the world. Some may argue that rational people always act...

Words: 1481 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Is Parliament Still Sovereign

...everyone no matter what position in society is accountable under law. Secondly is that the laws are clear for all and fundamental rights are upheld e.g. the right to reproduce. Thirdly is the process by which the laws are enacted, administered and enforced is accessible and efficient. And finally someone who is impartial and neutral in the decision-making aspect must deliver justice in an acceptable time frame. (b) With reference to the source and your own knowledge, explain how the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed process by. In theory the Judiciary should be independent from the government since it is its own pillar in society. In the coming years the independence of the judiciary has been cemented. This is partly due to the constitutional reform act as shown in the extract, now the Lord Chancellor is guaranteed independence from the Lord chief justice. The Lord Chancellor had to swear an oath to defend the independence of the Judiciary. Another important step to independence of the Judiciary was achieved by the erection of the Supreme Court in 2009, which moved powers further away from the government in the way they could manipulate the courts i.e. The process by which judicial appointments are made is also more independent and distanced from government after these reforms. Other ideas that keep the Judiciary independent, which are not included in the extract are also important. One important aspect of Judicial Independence is the idea that Judges pay cannot be manipulated...

Words: 860 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

As Politics Unit 2 Edexcel

...explain why government needs an effective Parliament c) Analyse the main factors that limit the effectiveness of Parliament Jan 2010 a) With reference to source, what changes to the second chamber are proposed? b) With reference to the source, and your own knowledge, explain the arguments for a fully or partly elected chamber c) Make out a case against an elected second chamber Jan 2011 a) With reference to the source, describe two functions of the House of Commons b) With reference to the source, and your own knowledge, explain how the House of Commons can control the power of government c) To what extent is the House of Commons effective in carrying out its various functions? May 2011 a) With reference to the source, describe three proposals that seek to strengthen parliamentary representation by increasing popular participation b) With reference to the source, and your own knowledge, explain how three of these proposals seek to make government more accountable to Parliament c) To what extent will the coalition government’s proposals bring about an effective reform of Parliament? Jan 2012 a) With reference to the source, why are legislative committees needed? b) With reference to the source, and your own knowledge, explain the ways in which backbench MPs can call government to account c) To what extent has the formation of a coalition altered the relationship between Parliament and government? Jan 2013 a) With reference to the source, outline two criticisms of...

Words: 1305 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Reflective Log

...organizations and institutions. Power distance has different between large and small. People with large power distance will great acceptance of unequal power, but people with a small power distance want power to be shared equally. Some Asian countries are large power distance and western countries are small power distance. Uncertainty Avoidance: When a society has threat from ambiguous and uncertain situations, they try to through providing a safe job, setting up more formal rules and beveling experts’ assessment to avoid uncertain situations. Using weak or strong to describe uncertainty avoidance. Strong uncertainty avoidance is characterized by intolerance for behaviours and ideas that deviate from the norm. Collectivism vs Individualism: The extent to which people define themselves as autonomous individuals or members of groups. An individualist society is a loose organization of social structure. People just care about themselves and their immediate families. Collectivism societies are characterized by a strict social structure. People have their own group and want to get help from group, at same time members put emphasis on groups and be loyal to group. Femininity vs Masculinity: The distribution of emotional roles between the genders. A masculine society has social values such as competitiveness, assertiveness, self-confident materialism, ambition and power. A feminine society has different social values such as nurturing sympathy for the disadvantages, quality of life, friendship...

Words: 1615 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Pricing Stretegy

...Objectives The objectives of the study can be summarized as follows: * Contribute to the emerging literature on pricing and consumption in examining and defining the key perceived values. * Interpret and expand existing consumer behavior models. * Generate a framework to help marketers to build and monitor the pricing of products. * Stimulate further research on pricing and customer satisfaction. Problem Statement How can mangers use various pricing strategies to build stable, long-term relationships with their customers? Pricing has a significant and broad impact on how consumers view and use products, However, it is more difficult to judge the effects that pricing has on product consumption. The relationship between pricing and consumption lies at the core of customer strategy. The extent to which a customer uses a product during a certain time period often determines whether he or she will buy a product again. So pricing tactics that encourage people to use the products they have paid for help companies building long-term relationships with customers. The link between pricing and consumption is clear, people are more likely to consume a product when they are aware of its cost. But for many executives, the idea that they should draw the consumer’s...

Words: 3163 - Pages: 13

Free Essay

Conflicts in Divorce

...Executive Summary - Divorce Group 1 Statistics and History - Anteous Lewis 1 Types of Divorce - Christopher Leto 3 Conflicts and Negotiations - Spencer Griffin 6 Third Party Negotiation - Tiquoia Francis 7 Effects and Influences on Family Life - Joshua Norman 8 Works Cited 11 Statistics & History - Not surprisingly, divorce rates have only increased over time. There are a variety of factors that contribute to this, including general attitudes towards divorce and marriage in society. While statistics reveal a steady increase in divorce rates, it wasn't until the 70s that divorce became statistically prevalent. According to the CDC's report 100 Years of Divorce and Marriage Statistics, divorce rates went from less than 3% to almost 7% from the late 1800s to the late 1960s. There were a variety of factors that influenced divorce rates. The statistics below show the percentage of divorces that occurred out of the total number of marriages for a given year. Prior to 1867, divorce statistics were not recorded. While there certainly was a stigma attached to divorcing a spouse in the 1800s, divorce still happened on occasion. One factor that influenced divorce statistics at this time was the fact that women, outside of marriage, had very few economic opportunities.    While the trend thus far in history had been for the divorce rate to increase, this isn't quite the case with the 30s. Due to the depression in the 20s, many couples stayed together...

Words: 3338 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Phi 208

...discriminate against someone merely because he is far away from us" (Singer Famine pg600). Singer emphasizes on the fact that distance is not a reason to fail in doing what is morally right to do. The distance between you and the person in need is not a moral justification to discard their need. Singer also emphasizes on an interesting point in his assertion which implies that two wrongs do not make a right. Singer states, "one feels less guilty about doing nothing if one can point to others, similarly placed, who have also done nothing" (Singer Famine pg600)Singer supports this claim by providing an example of a scenario in which a person witnesses a child drowning. Most people would agree that that person has a duty to save the drowning child. Singer claims that this duty exists because we believe that the drowning of a child is a bad thing. If a person has a duty to save the child because a drowning child is a very bad thing, it is reasonable to assume then, that moral duty extends to preventing any significantly bad thing from happening, with the exceptions mentioned earlier being the only limitations to this duty. And, this duty exists independent of how people actually choose to act. Moral requirements are different than legal requirements, and what a person chooses to do is not necessarily what he/she...

Words: 1511 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Biddy's Bakery

...Yogesfary Thirumoorthy (ZP01520) Question 1 Definition of Litigation: A civil action brought before a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have received damages from a defendant's actions, seeks a legal or equitable remedy. Definition of Mediation: A facilitative process for resolving disputes quickly and cheaply. Mediation aims to regulate the procedures and principles for resolving conflicts without recourse to courts; the goal is to arrive at a solution simply and easily Contrasting principles between litigation and mediation as per below table and will be explained in details as stated in Alternative Dispute Resolution in Industrial Disputes by Kamal Halili Hassan [2006] 5 MLJ xiii. NO | Litigation | Mediation | 1 | Interests accommodation | Rights enforcement | 2 | Value claiming | Value creating | 3 | Coercive & Binding | Voluntary & consensual | 4 | Due process of law | Procedural flexibility | 5 | Privity of involvement | Widely participatory | 6 | Formality | In formality | 7 | Norm imposing | Norm creating | 8 | Consistency and precedetial | Situation & Individualized | 9 | Act-centered | Person-centred | 10 | Fact-oriented | Relationship-oriented | 11 | Past focus | Future focus | 12 | Professionalised | Peer-based | 13 | Public & accountability | Private & Confidential | 14 | Adversarial | Collaborative | 1. Interest accommodation & Rights enforcement Mediation process has limited right of appeal...

Words: 2618 - Pages: 11

Free Essay

Criminal Justice

...com/list_7774779_role-duties-district-attorney.html#ixzz1tRSozElQ Read more: Assistant District Attorney Job Description | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_6678588_assistant-district-attorney-job-description.html#ixzz1tRTlS8rU Read more: Assistant District Attorney Job Description | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_6678588_assistant-district-attorney-job-description.html#ixzz1tRTwBvmX * Read more: Assistant District Attorney Job Description | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_6678588_assistant-district-attorney-job-description.html#ixzz1tRU8Bc2n Police Investigate Filing of Criminal Complaint After an alleged crime is investigated, the police initiate the criminal procedure by filing a complaint with the Magisterial District Judge (MDJ) in the area that the crime occurred. Once the complaint is filed, the MDJ will issue either a summons or a warrant of arrest, depending generally on the seriousness of the offense alleged. If issued a summons, the defendant will be notified of the date of their preliminary hearing in the summons. Preliminary Arraignment If a warrant of arrest is issued by the MDJ, or if the process was initiated by a warrantless arrest, the defendant must appear before the MDJ for a preliminary arraignment. The defendant will be provided with a copy of the...

Words: 10970 - Pages: 44

Free Essay

To What Extent Has the Use of Technology in Evidence Altered Our Understanding of Adversarialism?

...Evidence To what extent has the use of technology in evidence altered our understanding of adversarialism? What is adversarialism? The adversarial system is the two-sided structure under which criminal trial courts in the UK operate. There are four prominent structural features of the English adversarial system. Firstly, the parties dominate the conduct of proceedings with the judge playing a relatively passive role. Secondly, the parties are free to choose the terrain on which to fight out their legal battles and to select their forensic weapons. Thirdly, Trials are continuous, oral and public events. Fourthly, the imbalance of power between the state and the accused is ameliorated by rules and principles reducing inequality of arms. High level definitions or at least descriptions of the adversarial system abound such as that of Lord Denning in Jones v The National Coal Board.They are all to the effect that the judge is a passive and neutral umpire who cannot descend into the arena for fear of having his or her judgement clouded. The adversarial system is said to be the most efficient means of arriving at approximate truth because it harnesses the power of self-interest on each side to unearth the best evidence. Similarly the best legal arguments are thought to emerge from the clash of advocate’s submission on the law. A classic quotation is that of Lord Eldon in Ex Parte Lloyd that ‘truth is best discovered by powerful statements on both sides of the question.’ This...

Words: 6120 - Pages: 25

Free Essay

Reflection on Rachels

...tribe of Indians) customarily ate the bodies of their dead fathers. The Greeks, of course, did not do that—the Greeks practiced cremation and regarded the funeral pyre as the natural and fitting way to dispose of the dead. Darius thought that a sophisticated understanding of the world must include an appreciation of such differences between cultures. One day, to teach this lesson, he summoned some Greeks who happened to be present at his court and asked them what they would take to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They were shocked, as Darius knew they would be, and replied that no amount of money could persuade them to do such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians, and while the Greeks listened asked them what they would take to burn their dead fathers' bodies. The Callatians were horrified and told Darius not even to mention such a dreadful thing. This story, recounted by Herodotus in his History illustrates a recurring theme in the literature of social science: Different cultures have different moral codes. What is thought right within one group may be utterly abhorrent to the members of another group, and vice versa. Should we eat the bodies of the dead or burn them? If you were a Greek, one answer would seem obviously correct; but if you were a Callatian, the opposite would seem equally certain. It is easy to give additional examples of the same kind. Consider the Eskimos. They are a remote and inaccessible people. Numbering only about 25,000, they live in...

Words: 5426 - Pages: 22

Free Essay

Intro

...verbatim records of the Public Hearing and all Press Releases up to 14 July 2010. The official name of the Advisory Opinion of 22 July 2010 was Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo. Finally, in his separate opinion, Judge Cançado Trindade used the name Accordance with International Law of Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence. In terms of length, the Kosovo Advisory Opinion is not out of line with other Advisory Opinions. What is remarkable is how little substance it has. Only 14 of the 44 pages deal with substantive legal questions, and only two pages are devoted to the question of whether general international law contains an applicable prohibition of declarations of independence. Conversely, the Advisory Opinion is extremely well referenced, giving the impression the Court is playing for space. It was noted that the Advisory Opinion is interesting in terms of voting patterns. The widespread but often unsubstantiated view is that judges vote along the lines of their countries’ legal and political interests. However, only eight of the ten votes in favour of the decision were from judges whose countries had recognised Kosovo. The Brazilian judge voted in...

Words: 4718 - Pages: 19

Premium Essay

Styllistics

...Functional Styles of the English Language Functional styles (FS) are the subsystems of language, each subsystem having its own peculiar features in what concern vocabulary means, syntactical constructions, and even phonetics. The appearance and existence of FS is connected with the specific conditions of communication in different spheres of human life. FS differ not only by the possibility or impossibility of using some elements but also due to the frequency of their usage. For example, some terms can appear in the colloquial style but the possibility of its appearance is quite different form the possibility to meet it in an example of scientific style. The classification of FS is a very complicated problem, that is why we will consider ideas of I.V.Arnold and I.R. Galperin, bearing in mind that Galperin treats functional styles as patterns of the written variety of language thus excluding colloquial FS. Both scholars agree that each FS can be recognized by one or more leading features. But Galperin pays more attention to the coordination of language means and stylistic devices whereas Arnold connects the specific features of each FS with its peculiarities in the sphere of communication. According to I.R. Galperin, a functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A functional style should be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional...

Words: 2494 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Stylistics

...Functional Styles of the English Language Functional styles (FS) are the subsystems of language, each subsystem having its own peculiar features in what concern vocabulary means, syntactical constructions, and even phonetics. The appearance and existence of FS is connected with the specific conditions of communication in different spheres of human life. FS differ not only by the possibility or impossibility of using some elements but also due to the frequency of their usage. For example, some terms can appear in the colloquial style but the possibility of its appearance is quite different form the possibility to meet it in an example of scientific style. The classification of FS is a very complicated problem, that is why we will consider ideas of I.V.Arnold and I.R. Galperin, bearing in mind that Galperin treats functional styles as patterns of the written variety of language thus excluding colloquial FS. Both scholars agree that each FS can be recognized by one or more leading features. But Galperin pays more attention to the coordination of language means and stylistic devices whereas Arnold connects the specific features of each FS with its peculiarities in the sphere of communication. According to I.R. Galperin, a functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A functional style should be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional...

Words: 2494 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

Report Islamic Financial Cases

...SUMMARY Dato’ Hj Nik Mahmud v. BIMB (1996) * FACTS: * The plaintiff with attorney had entered into a PSA and PPA with the defendant in respect of 25 lots of land in BBA concept. * The defendant purchased the properties and resold back to the plaintiff with additional prices and charges. * The plaintiff applied for an order that the charges be declared null and void. * He also applied for the return the titles of the properties, free of all encumbrances. * ISSUES: * Whether sale of land in accordance with IB Concept of BBA contravened the Malay Reservations Enactment 1930 of Kelantan. * Whether purchase and resale of land for profit by bank contravened the Malay Reservations Enactment 1930 of Kelantan * PRINCIPLES: * Section 7(i) of the Enactment prohibits any transfer or transmission or vesting of any right or interest of a Malay. However, when the property purchase agreement was signed, the right that could be acquired by the defendant under the agreement at that point of time, the agreement being still executor, was only a right to a registrable interest which right was yet to crystallized into a registrable interest. * The contemporaneous execution of the property purchase agreement and the property purchase agreement and the property sale agreement constituted part of the process required by the Islamic banking procedure before the plaintiff could avail himself of the financial facilities provided...

Words: 4437 - Pages: 18