Judicial Independence
The judicial independence may be a victim right from the stage of
the appointment of judges. When judges are appointed not on the basis of their competence and commitment to the constitution but
on such extraneous considerations as class, caste, community, region, religion or ideology, it takes the toll of judicial
independence at the very inception. The threat to the independence of judiciary may also spring more often from within than from
without. The personal ambitions, publicity mania populism, economic interests, personal predilections, prejudices and biases
can be as much responsible for eroding the independence as external pressures. Those who succumb to the external pressures
are in nor manner different from those who fall a victim to the internal weaknesses. With the judiciary being increasingly forced
to assume a more dominant role in matters of public interests, the threat of judicial independence from within requires a strict
vigilance, lest our democracy is supplanted by judiciocracy. This danger is not unreal since unlike the executive and the
legislature, the judiciary is not accountable to the people. With unlimited power over the life, liberty, property and reputation
of the citizens, the judiciary may well grow into a leviathan and a law unto itself.
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