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Lord Chief Justice of England once said "A judge is a gentleman first and gentleman last, if he knows the law all the better". By saying so he emphasised upon ethics of judges and downplayed their knowledge of law. Detailed comments on this judgment cannot be offered until detailed order is read alongwith documents placed on record. This order has still not been posted on the web site of Supreme Court. But we can comment on whatever is public knowledge. Lawyers and civil society is fighting on the streets for judicial independence. Their clear demand is to restore pre 3 November, 2007 judiciary. This whole movement puts a question mark on the legitimacy of existing judiciary. Political parties like PML (N), Jamaat-e-Islami, Tehreek-e-Insaf etc., are also firmly standing behind lawyers movement and their demands, and is well known to the whole world. The judges who have handed down this judgment also know it well. They also know that PML (N) has also announced to actively join long march and dharna of lawyers. The success of this march is definitely going to upset the existing status of superior judiciary. In a situation like this any judgment handed down against Sharif brothers will appear to be biased. Now the well known judicial norms require that when any one litigating party doubts the legitimacy of judges they are likely to be biased against that party, whatever they may say. In a situation like this the judges are bound by their good conduct to refuse to adjudicate upon such litigating party. Their good conduct also calls for refusal to sit on the bench and adjudicate in such a situation even if they have slight doubt that jusitice will not appear to have been done. So the question is not that such judgment is unpopular. The question is have the judges handing down such judgment violated a well known judicial norm or not?
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