Dear Friends: My personal beleif that like any other public authority the Judges need to be held accountable for their official duty which is passing orders, more so for orders which are grossly bad in law. The typical defense taken by Judges is that accountablity could interfere with independence is grossly incorrect. I am aware of so many orders which are grossly bad in law and the only option available for citizens is to take the order in appeal. However there does not seem to be an effective remedy to hold judges accountable.
I agree with Mr.Victor that we need to record court proceedings as substantial part of the proceedings does not get recorded in the roznama. While there is a Special Investigation department attached to every high court where citizens can make complaints against judges, they are typically manned by very junior judicial officers. A regulatory with reasonable senior officers with most of them from outside the Judiciary would be a decent solution to start with. Also another very serious problem which plagues the Judicial system is conflicting judgments on the same issue which leads to a lot of confusion and misuse of powers by Judges. Comments from members on the above issue would be appreciated. Regards Milind Kotak On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Victor Cooper <[email protected]>wrote: > > > Democracy means transparency, fairplay, rule of law and accountability. > > I am neither an advocate, nor trained to be one. However, my view is that > judges are accountable in a court of law for the following reasons: > > 1. Judges may be immune when they perform their judicial duty. However, > misconduct or corruption cannot be said to be in discharge of their judicial > duties and, therefore, they would be accountable under those circumstances. > > 2. Judges may be immune under good faith. However, extra-judicial conduct > like misconduct or corruption cannot be said to be action in good faith and, > therefore, they would be accountable. > > 3. Even otherwise, justice, transparency, accountability and fair play are > the cornerstones of a successful and long-life democracy. Judges must be > under the power of scrutiny and be called for answers. > > It would help a lot to audio-visual record all courts and their > proceedings. It would help a lot for peer comparision. And certainly it > would help a lot for a powerful (in-built) regulator along the lines of CAG, > SEBI, Lok Ayukt. > > >
