This refers to a news item appearing in the Business Recorder on January 20, 2010 with the title "Top Chinese judge jailed for life". The news report states that the Chinese court sentenced a formal top Supreme Court judge to life in prison on Tuesday for taking bribes and other graft charges, a court official and state media said.
In a recent report published in the International Bar Association Monthly Issue of December 9, 2009, the United Kingdom's Attorney General Baroness Scotland has been fined £5,000 by the UK Border Agency for hiring a house-keeper at her home, who was an illegal immigrant, because her temporary visit visa had expired and she did not have the right to work thereafter.
Such are the examples of good governance in the developed and developing countries. The Chief Justice of Pakistan, ever since restoration to his office, has been reiterating on the eradication of corruption in the judicial system, which itself speaks volume of the existing corruption therein.
In the superior judiciary, such a judge only faces removal under Article 209 of the Constitution, upon a decision communicated by the Supreme Judicial Council to the President, without any further consequences. In Pakistan's chequered judicial history of more than 60 years, only two cases of High Court Judges Mr Akhlaq Hussain, J and Mr Shaukat Ali, J, were sent to the Supreme Judicial Council, upon its recommendations, they were removed.
Recently, a news item has appeared on the enormous fees charged by some high-profile lawyers obviously not as fees, which can hardly be termed as practice. Long ago, in the Bombay High Court, a Parsi barrister Billimoria was practising for almost 25 years, but was commuting on a bicycle from his home to the High Court.
A new barrister, within a span of two years practice, started coming to the High Court in a new convertible MG (a highly popular car in those times). While sitting in the bar, an advocate asked Billimoria how if that he had been in practice for 25 years and yet commuted on a bicycle, whereas this young barrister, within a span of two years, commuted in a new convertible MG? Billimoria replied, "Yes, Billimoria has been in practice for 25 years but not in practices."
What we have today, unfortunately, is largely 'practices' in the legal system. I think, while the whole country is demanding accountability of politicians, generals, bureaucrats and others, why are the judicial officers, the law officers and the legal community treated as sacred cows and they should be accountable too.