A Criminologist's Dairy-64

A Criminologist’s Dairy-64

Account Criminology and Criminal Ju...

QUALITY OF JUDGES

‘Once a Judge, always a Judge’, ‘Once a Judge, always a just man’- people say so or better believe so. Yes, it only a belief which means “having confidence in the truth, the existence or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so”[Webster’s].It is a question of faith in somebody or something. Faith means belief that is not based on proof. Judges are human beings-mortals and precisely therefore, the unquestioned belief or faith in Judges has been without sufficient empirical evidence. The empirical evidence proves that a Judge is not always just and the merit of a Judge is decided by the quality of his judgement and the quality is decided not by the Judge himself but by the people in a democracy.

India had, till recently, no test to enroll oneself as a lawyer. Once, a person is enrolled as an Advocate, he becomes eligible to become a judge if he is selected or appointed. The selection process does not have any objective test to assess the personality or aptitude of those entering into judicial positions as magistrates, munsiffs or judges. Allegations are plenty-open and otherwise-that people who are not qualified have entered into the judicial service- even to the higher levels. Of late, there have been many allegations of corruption and malpractices against judges of the higher and highest judiciary. Some of the judges and judicial functionaries of lower service have been detected as people of little or no integrity and their judgments have been found to be qualitatively inferior.

In USA, once a study was conducted to know the justness of white judges to the black. The result of the study has been shocking or far away from being satisfactory. In India, no such serious studies have been conducted to know the quality of judges and the same of the judgements pronounced by them. Nevertheless, the judges of the superior courts, Supreme Court of India, retired judges/chief justices and so on from time and again, speak loudly that a specified percentage of the judges (One Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India said that 20% of the judicial officials in a public address at Kollam in Kerala State) are corrupt, are people of questionable integrity, honesty, fairness and justness. Why do they become so? The reasons are many and various. Some of them are-

(1) They become susceptible to the influence and recommendations.

(2) They become a spatula of politicians who offer them positions and postings.

(3) They become corrupt and people of no moral values.

(4) They become the nexus partners of crime syndicates and white collar criminals.

(5) They become friendly with corrupt lawyers and other affluent/influential people.

(6) They suffer from lack of knowledge in law and other sciences.

(7) They suffer from psychological problems, affinities, prejudices, pre-conceived ideas and parochial loyalties.

The list can be very long. Now attempts are made to rectify the defects, but it may take time.