Judicial accountability

If a clerk at a government office takes a bribe, he can be suspended within days. If a judge is accused of the same, who can even start an inquiry? The Constitution shields judges so that they can decide against the powerful, but a shield that nobody can lift is also a hiding place. Judicial accountability is the question of how a system that protects judges still keeps them answerable.

In two minutes

Judicial accountability means that judges, though independent, remain answerable for misconduct and incapacity, through the removal process of Articles 124(4)-(5), 217 and 218, through the High Court's control of subordinate courts, through reasoned public judgments, and through limited scrutiny by law and the public.

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