Generally, people say that ‘A wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion.’ Must have heard this? If, we speak about judges, do you actually believe and consider that the judges are unprejudiced? What about the gender variation? Does the gender of the judge affect their biasness and the judgment?
One cannot fan or critic ‘biasness’ from a sole angle. All and sundry in this planet and the human race are biased, be it family, friends, or any person with whom you share a special bond. The disparity in outlook, perceptions and sensitivity issues towards things varies from person to person. Adding to this, it won’t be a bombshell if I say that a girl’s and a boy’s viewpoint may hold opposing views. Does this truly make a difference?
Are judges immune from this angle too? Long ago, law was considered to be a man’s field. In India, it was not permissible for a woman to practice law. But today women are doing wonders in this field. Today’s judiciary embodies and is represented by both man and women. However, the question to be posed here is whether the gender of the judge has any impact on the process of judging or giving judgments?
Are the judgments rendered by the lady judges affected by their ‘favoritism’ issues? Obviously, we have no method to test this or to identify this difference. Lack of this, does not imply that the gender of the judge does not play a significant role in their judgments.
Women are deemed to be more “emotional”, “empathetic” and “involved” as compared to men. Rather, it’s a true fact. It doesn’t imply that guys are more mature. It’s just that women have sensitive issues, to which they can easily relate themselves to; specially, if the matter relates to some kind of a family issue or a crime towards women or something where one can relate to issues like feminism or any concern of such a kind for that affair. It is taken as a fact that a judge will perform his/her judicial duties without biasness. But, does it mean that a judge has shed away all of his/her life experiences, just by being sworn in. This is purely not feasible. How can you anticipate someone to undergo instantaneous change in whatever he/she personally feels or assumes or believes about something or rather has personally experienced it?
A lady judge can in a way, be said to have the most obstinate bias of all, in that she believes that she is not biased at all. In fact, a female judge’s judgment may sometimes be seen leaning towards the more unexpected side in order to prove her non-biasness. But is this really achievable when some family matter or a rape matter appears before her court? She is naturally tended to bend towards the victim in the case. But does this mean that she is “always correct”? Sometimes you will find them to be so much traumatized with their own issues, that they cannot be unbiased. They simply, just can’t help relating to the victim, so much so that the right of the other party to be equally heard without any prejudice is often trampled over. But some of them are so clearly biased that you can basically read their minds and know the outcome of the case even before it is rendered. They think they already know these kinds of people and hardly bother listening to them.
During, the internships in courts, one can clearly see how a lady judge gets persuaded by the female victim and hardly bothers to listen to the other party. It is not only a case with a single judge, or of a single time, this happens most of the times. Is this what we call as imparting justice? When a law student, during his/her internships witnesses such biasness, you can’t even imagine what kind of image will be formed in his mind regarding our judicial system, which he so far considered to be free from biasness.
Now, when such kind of biasness prevails in the society, then who is responsible for the ‘justice.’ Every person looks up to the judge with faith and a ray of hope of providing him with justice. Is justice so scrawny that it is influenced by the emotions of a person? Who should the people recourse to for ‘uninfluenced justice?’
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