DO NOT MAKE AN HONEST JUDGE

DO NOT MAKE AN HONEST JUDGE <!--[if gte mso 10]> DO NOT MAKE AN HONEST JUDGE ! By Justice S.A. Rabbani, Karachi Integrity is the most significant requirement of a Judge. Yet it is imperative not to make an honest Judge. An honest man can always make an appallingly bad Judge. An honest man usually develops certain harmful traits, which may be lack of confidence, cowardice, jealousy, short-sightedness, miserliness and whimsicality. These negative qualities can be easily observed in most of the persons carrying a reputation of honesty. It may, be of general interest to discover the cause of development of these negative qualities in a man having a reputation titled with `honest'. Honesty is a path of righteousness. By virtue of inherent nature and propensity, a human being chooses the path of righteousness only out of fear. What makes all the difference is whom or what one is afraid of. Although it is equally applicable in case of persons in any field, but here we may take the case of Judge only. A Judge who is always worried about his reputation is, consciously or unconsciously, afraid of the people around him and the environments relevant to him. He is always extra careful about his reputation in the mind of the people around him. This fear of the environments and the people impairs his confidence and he becomes slow in judgment as he preconceives adverse reaction and comments of a section of the people on each of his findings on either side, which makes him hesitant in his judgment. This reflects lack of confidence. An extrawary judge, sensitive about his reputation, becomes a coward because he is always afraid of almost every person and activity around him. He is afraid of his own shadow. A spotless reputation is his ultimate aim and to save the reputation from a spot is the total endeavour. Craving for a good reputation makes him craven. An honest Judge avoids illegal earnings and his economic condition is usually at a lower level in comparison of many others in the society, who do not care about legality of the source of earning. This makes him jealous towards those having more than he himself possesses. Frailty of the ultimate end of an honest Judge- viz. a good reputation, makes his intellectual vision myopic, and his short-sightedness compels him to find fault in everything beyond himself. Fear of a damage to his reputation turns him a miser in grant of relief, even in the cases where grant of relief has a legal and moral justification. He refuses to grant relief that has a justification, for apprehension of an allegation against him, of bribe, partiality or undue influence. A test case may be where there is an information that someone has extorted money in the name of the Judge for grant of relief. A Judge, sensitive about his reputation, would withhold the relief even in a case where there is a legal justification for its grant, just to show that he was not involved in the wrongful act. This he would do because his reputation in the eyes of the people only matters to him. You can always find a Judge who never accepts bribe or illegal gratification, never listens to anybody about cases except in the Court, but, at the same time, does not do justice just for fear of a damage to his reputation. An honest Judge may be whimsical. If he has a whim that a certain person is righteous and honest, he would take an opinion of such a person as conclusive despite the fact that. such opinion may substantially harm some other person. All these weaknesses are outcome of the fear of the people who may form a wrong adverse opinion about reputation of a Judge. There is always a possibility of acquiring a wrong belief by any person harming reputation of a Judge, but it is not possible that God may be misguided by any wrong information in any shape. A person, or Judge, who chooses the right path for fear of God only is free from all these negative traits. He is a true believer `Imandar' and is different from an honest person with a good reputation as his ultimate end. An impression of good spotless reputation of an honest Judge on the mind of the people around him is the only reward desired by him. He gets this reward in his life and has no reward in the Hereafter. The Holy Qur'an clearly says:-‑ "If one desires a reward in this life, we shall give it to him; and it' one desires a reward in the Hereafter, we shall give it to him..." (Ale Imran 3:145). There is a `Hadis' that say that two categories of `Qazis' shall go to hell and one shall get the paradise. The first two categories include a corrupt `Qazi' and an honest `Qazi' who desires to get his reward in this life in the form of good reputation. A God-fearing `Qazi' shall only get a place in the paradise. A reward of mere good reputation, in this life, is too trivial in comparison with the pains that an honest man takes in making his reputation. A God-fearing Judge, with a desire for reward in the Hereafter, is only on the right path and successful. ***