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My Lord, How Much
Do You Own?
WSN Network
Finally, after
much resistance and after even a challenge in the Delhi High Court
to demands that the judges reveal the wealth that they have come to
possess, the Supreme Court of India's judges decided that it was
time they revealed.
The pressure of
democratic public opinion and much shame being heaped in the media
forced the hand and now opposition within sections of the higher
judiciary to mandatory public disclosure of judges’ assets has
melted. As it is, the public confidence in the judicial system is
not at an all time high. Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan's
reservations about mandatory public disclosure were hardly a secret
and Supreme Court's move to challenge an order to declare assets in
the Delhi High Court only raised doubts in people's minds.
Mandatory public
disclosure of judges’ assets is not a radical idea. In the United
States, the Ethics in Government Act 1978 makes it mandatory for
certain classes of federal officials — including federal judges — to
make public financial disclosures. The Act reformed a disclosure
system for federal officials that used to be based on internal
reporting within each agency or department. Many other countries,
including Sri Lanka, require judges to make periodic declarations of
their assets. Two High Court judges have already made voluntary
disclosures, one of them in response to a letter urging such
disclosure by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial
Reform, a public-spirited organisation that has done sustained work
on such issues. Many judges who have nothing to hide evidently feel
inhibited by the absence of a framework that mandates the accurate
and public disclosure of assets. The judiciary that endorsed the
Election Commission’s bid to introduce transparency and
accountability and mandate the public declaration of assets of
candidates to elected office cannot apply a different standard to
its own functioning.
2
September 2009
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