Judicial Misconduct and Disciplinary Procedures - A Brave New World

Abstract:     
For as long as judicial accountability was mostly construed as accountability through decision-making, by way of appeal and review, standards of judicial conduct were seen as accessory to accountability. But the growth in judicial power, via the development of human rights adjudication, has required a wider accountability from the judiciary. Following the Constitutional settlement of 2005, judicial standards of conduct are now expressly construed as a defining component of public trust in the judiciary. While, in order to maintain public confidence in the judiciary, the recent developments focus on great transparency in the process of regulation of judicial conduct, further developments are inevitable in further identifying and/or interpreting standards of judicial conduct. Some refinements to the mechanisms, formal or informal, of regulation of judicial conduct, are also needed to ensure that these standards are fully implemented.

Part of a collection entitled 'Contract Law and Civil Justice Special Issues In Memory of Kurt Lipstein', edited by M Andenas, N Andrews and M Tamaruya. This paper and related papers have been accepted for publication and will appear in one of two special series in European Business Law Review (2011)(papers on contract) and (2012) (papers on procedure and civil justice).

Number of Pages in PDF File: 17

Keywords: Judicial Independence, accountability, judiciary

JEL Classification: K4, K49

working papers series