A Criminologist's Dairy-65

A Criminlogist’s Dairy-65

Account Criminology and Criminal Ju...

PSYCHOLOGY of JUDGES

‘Offences against women should be tried by women judges’-this is a demand often raised by the Women’s Organizations in India. According to them, woman judges are psychologically better than men judges to administer proper and just justice to offenders who commit crimes against women. In one study, it was found that woman judges who tried rapists were seen to be awarding lesser punishments to rapists than men judges. Why? Judges who had very poor relations with their life partners (husbands or wives as the case might be) were more inclined to grant divorces whereas those who had good relations with their family simply refused to give divorces. They made every attempt to see that rupture did not take place in family life.

Judges are not divinities .They have their weaknesses, frailties which human beings have. They have a past, a developmental period, a personality, an outlook, an attitude, a vision, drives, motives, emotions, education etc. and they have their influence in the psychology of judges and their behavioural dynamics. If a member of the suppressed religious community in India behaves in a particular manner to a member in the upper community, he may have visible or invisible reasons for it. A judge is not an exception and he cannot be so.There are no bias- free judges as everyone has his prejudices and preconceived notions about issues, events and individuals.

A judge is born into a community, brought up in a community and precisely therefore he has his mental script written accordingly. The gown of the judges does not and cannot transfer him totally from that existence to a supernatural existence. He is a man- a human being after all and he behaves exactly like other human beings. His philosophy, affinities,’…ologies”,’…isms’, likes and dislikes affect him a lot to be a judge, to function as a judge. Certainly, his judgments will reflect all those things over which he has little or no control. There is a story about Galileo and the story is as follows. He said that “the earth rounds the sun”. The Church was against his observations as it was different from what the Bible taught. Therefore, he was taken to the Inquisition and the clergy said that he would be pardoned if he just said: “Excuse me, it is the Sun that rounds the earth and not the earth that rounds the Sun as I said earlier”. Galileo was assured of a pardon. Galileo agreed everything and said kneeling to the Inquisition that the Sun rounds the earth and then stood up and faced the people and said: “Yes, it is the earth that rounds the Sun”. Of course he was awarded death as a consequence. Likewise, the conviction in a man has a decisive influence upon his decision sand judgement. The judicial judges are no exceptions to this general rule. Any number of instances are quoted by lawyers to say how a judge would behave if he were to take a decision Nevertheless, they too are amenable or susceptible to influences, introductions and recommendations. The stories of corruption and malpractices among the judicial functionaries are coming out in battalions and therefore, the psychology of judges too is exactly like the psychology of other human beings with strengths and weaknesses. Modifications in their psychology take place just like they take place in other human beings. They are mortals and nothing more and nothing less.