I neither belong to the legal profession nor am I a high-profile member of the civil society. Someone pointed out the other day that the times have changed, hence anyone has the right to talk or give his opinion on any issue of people's concern and public interest, just like a non-politician or a poet is free to give their opinion and understanding of politics.

To my mind, the functioning of no other institution of the country involves the people of the country at all levels in such a unique way as the judiciary does. Judiciary is a unique institution like no other. It provides checks and balances so that power vested anywhere may not go haywire and become amenable to the constitutional fundamentals and answerable to those who are the ultimate masters or donors of the power.

Although our founding fathers through the constitution have given us the jurisprudence of judicial power, unfortunately neither they nor us have ever seriously thought on this critical aspect of judicial accountability. It is disconcerting to see that the legislature and the executive have systematically corrupted its vital functions.

There exists today more than ever before widespread judicial delinquency in various forms. Today from the highest court down to the lowest, grievance is writ large on the faces of the people due to lack of confidence in judges. Our judges have to be institutionally and individually accountable to the people and the country. Although the judicial power is not accountable to the executive or the parliament in a democratic institution, yet the judicature must be answerable to the people.

The oath of office and the unique robes that the judges wear must yield to the highest level of moral, ethical, and democratic discipline. We therefore need to seriously concentrate on this aspect of judicial accountability. Judicial exposure and accountability is central to the moral survival of a democratic state.

Harold J. Laski has best described it in his A Grammar of Politics, and I quote: Obviously, therefore, the men who are to make justice in the courts, in which they are to perform their function, the methods by which they are to be chosen, the terms upon which they shall hold power, these, and their related problems, lie at the heart of political philosophy. When we know how a nation-state dispenses justice, we know with some exactness the moral character to which it can pretend."

It is thus imperative to note here the importance of political philosophy that has been described as the key to judicial accountability. It is indeed sad that neither the state nor political philosophy pursued by our politicians nor political leaderships alike have done but little to ensure any real form of judicial accountability. Look how the judiciary is still linked and in a way even dependent on the executive.

Therefore, in order to create that passage for judicial accountability, we need to have the backing of a political philosophy that is morally and ethically sound. Do we have that? I do not think so. Today politicians and other agencies involved with the dispensation of justice are largely responsible for this state of our judiciary.

We have seen as to how our court premises have been vandalized, used and abused by both those belonging to the ruling party and other political entities. It is sad that even our lawyers have not been above suspicion in their conduct and hence they must also shoulder their share of the guilt.

As the famous saying goes: "The Bench cannot be corrupt if the Bar is forthright." Of relevance also is what the legendary judge of the Supreme Court of India, VR Krishna Iyer once said: "The Bench and the Bar must be mutually accountable and more than that both must fulfill the people's expectations since these two are the credited constitutional mechanisms for delivery of justice."

The other resultant factor that stands in the way of judicial accountability in Bangladesh is the way judges are appointed. Often they are not carefully screened through the collective wisdom of any duly constituted panel, resulting in bad choices. Leaving the process in the hands of the chief justices or ministers is no assurance that the process will be free from favoritism or political pollution.

Here I would like to quote a statement by that Brilliant Barrister David Pannick in his Judges and Co that to my mind firmly establishes the case for judicial accountability: "Some politicians and a few jurists, urge that it is unwise or even dangerous to tell the truth about the Judiciary. Judge Jerome Frank of the US Court of Appeals sensibly explained that by saying that he had little patience with, or respect for, that suggestion. I am unable to conceive [...] that, in a democracy, it can ever be unwise to acquaint the public with the truth about the workings of any branch of the government. It is wholly undemocratic to treat the public as children who are unable to accept the inescapable shortcomings of man-made institutions [...] The best way to bring about the elimination of these shortcomings of our judicial system which are capable of being eliminated is to have all our citizens informed as to how that system functions. It is therefore a mistake to try to establish and maintain public esteem for our courts through ignorance."