Session 11- Judges and their political bias.

Heywood’s article this week deals with the constitution and the judiciary. While the constitution is known to be the set of rules, that provide the various institutions and the government of a state to carry out their actions, judiciary is that branch of the government, which resolves legal disputes and makes decisions regarding law making on various levels.

I would like to comment on the judicial aspect of this week’s reading and how as mentioned by Heywood, the main characteristics of the judiciary is independence and its non-political nature. These claims are made in theory, but in practice, the scenario is the opposite. Most of the times, the judge ends up becoming in some way or another political actors and their judgments somewhat get influenced by their personal views. Socialization is a psychological phenomenon whose basic view is that human’s opinions are shaped by their surroundings and every human has some opinion about a certain topic. Humans, who have within them certain political views and beliefs lead the judiciary and there is a high chance of their biases creeping into their practice. How free and fair is their judgment then is questionable. Having said this however, this is not always the case and there are always exceptions to any case.

This week’s reading reminded me of an interaction I had with my friend’s father, who is a Sindh High Court judge. It was the time when election fever was high in the country and the new found love and support for PTI was everywhere. On a visit to their house, I spoke about his political views and he told me that every judge or lawyer even has a certain favorite political party that they support, and when it comes down to certain cases, unwillingly or unconsciously, they tend to be biased in their favor. He was very unabashedly accepting this fault in the judicial system.