The misinterpretation went so far as to suggest that I was of the opinion that we should do away with the Commission for the Administration of Justice. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Not to be accused of plagiarism I reiterate forehand that what I am stating now is a reflection of earlier thoughts I had made in the aforementioned article.

Many are those who are under the wrong perception that our members of the judiciary are in no way answerable to any supervisory authority. In actual fact this was certainly the case in the past. However this is not quite so today.

On 3 June 1994, the Commission for the Administration of Justice was set up. The scope behind this authority was primarily to introduce for the first time the concept of accountability for the judiciary. In truth, however, there was an earlier attempt in this direction in the early 1980s. The mechanism that was introduced back then, however, was interpreted, perhaps rightly so, as constituting undue inference by the executive.

In this regard it must be stated that the relative board then introduced was constituted solely of members representing the government, a far cry from the way the present commission is made up of today and, added to this, its terms of reference were not compatible with the entrenched provisions of our constitution guaranteeing absolute independence to our courts. On account of this, the idea was abandoned and the relative law repealed.

A new approach was adapted in the early 1990s. The introduction in our juridical system of the Commission for the Administration of Justice however was not exempt from initial suspicion and resistance even from prominent members of the bench. This notwithstanding, nowadays no one refutes the necessity of having a means of ensuring a certain amount of accountability for the judiciary so long as this would not in any way signify undue interference.

In truth, however, experience has shown us that our present authority does not have the legal means to fulfil its functions. Our President had in actual fact, earlier on, hinted at what I have just stated and subtly suggested that it could perhaps be the time to revisit the relative law. Furthermore, in his customary speech of yesteryear, the president of the Chamber of Advocates also took occasion to dwell on the issue of judicial accountability, and this is what prompted me to submit my original article. He stressed, and I fully concur, that our Courts deserved all the esteem and respect but argued that they can only preserve such prestige if they were to appear more answerable to the general public in line with other members of our country’s top institutions. Again it must be emphasised that all this was stated within the framework of the inalienable principle of the independence of the judiciary.

As Shadow Minister of Justice I felt that I had to take this issue one step further. As our constitution stands today there’s not much more that can be done. In recent times and under the previous Justice Minister, the idea was floated to publish periodically court statistics in order to publically scrutinise the performance of particular members of the judiciary. This strategy of naming and shaming proved unsatisfactory, to say the least, as the performance of our judiciary cannot be measured in this fashion for obvious reasons, and here again the idea was justly abandoned.

In parliament I therefore had occasion to invite the present Justice Minister to discuss this issue with the Opposition in a cordial way. I must assert that I am adamantly four square behind the relative constitutional provisions guaranteeing absolute independence to our members of the judiciary.

I would therefore be exceedingly reluctant to concur with proposals aiming at disturbing the relative constitutional provisions. On the other hand as I like to say, times change and we have to learn how to change with them. In this day and age there no longer is place for sacred cows and no matter what position you may hold you are expected to be answerable for your performance.

In the final analysis, our constitution in truth always held the key for our problem. The judiciary has always been held answerable to parliament. As things stand today, however, parliament will only intervene according to Article 97(2) of our constitution in instances of impeachment. Perhaps the way forward is to increase the powers of parliamentary scrutiny in other instances as well.

Together with other parliamentarians I have occasionally recommended the necessity of introducing, as exists elsewhere, a standing parliamentary committee on justice, even to serve as a sort of rapporteur to Parliament itself. Parliamentary scrutiny, after all, cannot definitely be interpreted as undue interference by the executive, since the executive itself is answerable to parliament and this institution is the only one which resonates universal suffrage.

Undoubtedly the aforesaid is merely food for thought and must never be construed as a challenge to the authority of the Commission for the Administration of Justice and undeniably the issue is a delicate one and must be debated with great caution and foresight. On the other hand however the prestige and respect our courts once enjoyed is fading and one way of reversing this phenomenon is surely to make our judiciary appear closer to the common people.

Dr Jose Herrera is

Labour spokesman on justice