Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to make a number of contributions, both in this newspaper and in Parliament, regarding the independence of the judiciary. I stress that such reflections have always been made from a personal point of view.

In a previous article, I had underlined the threat to the independence of members of the judiciary due to their meagre pension and the fact that elderly members feel obliged to seek ulterior government appointments once they reach retirement age. I had the opportunity to make several recommendations in this respect.

Lately, another aspect connected to the financial package offered to the judiciary has come to my notice and which, in a subtle way, can also contribute adversely to the issue of judicial independence.

The Constitution does not only guarantee judges' and magistrates' tenure of office but, also, and supposedly in the same manner, their salary.

In fact, apart from requiring a two thirds majority in Parliament in order to remove a judge from office, the Constitution also predisposes that the salary of the members of Bench is to be paid out directly of the Consolidated Fund.

The reason behind this is to guarantee their pay and prevent the Executive from attempting to reduce their salary in anyway.

The idea of course is to deter at all costs the temptation of a government to play about with the judges' salaries in order to exert certain pressures, thereby affecting seriously the serenity which the judiciary is supposed to operate in.

A lot of severe criticism had been made when, in the past, it had been the practice of the government to appoint particular members of the judiciary to act as judicial officers in revising and assessing notarial deeds. Those judicial officers where paid by way of tariffs on every contract they would be asked to assess.

Due to this fact, a minority of judges and magistrates would be earning considerably more than their peers and this was seen as a form of enticement and preferential treatment with regard to certain judges and such practice could definitely impinge on the independence of the judiciary.

This anomaly has been redressed and today this function is no longer carried out by incumbent members of the Bench.

On the other hand, however, when we examine clearly the financial package being offered to the judiciary, we would discover an anomaly which can subtly affect judicial independence. It has come to my knowledge that a considerable part of the salary of the members of the Bench comes in the form of allowances and not as part of their ordinary salary.

This is very dangerous indeed and, in fact, runs counter to the very spirit of our Constitution.

The reason for this is that while, as stated earlier, the Executive is prohibited by the Constitution from ever reducing a particular judges' or magistrates' salary, the same cannot be said with regard to their allowances.

In fact, in the past certain aspects of such allowances were negatively affected by certain provisions made by the government.

Thus, what the Constitution wants to safeguard at all costs, that is the non-interference by the Executive in matters dealing with salaries of members of the judiciary, in practice is no longer the case because the government is free to play about with their allowances.

Undoubtedly, the judicial organ of state plays an indispensable role in the checks and balances required in any democracy.

Over the last year-and-a-half, the government has been focusing greatly on the need of a total revamp of the judiciary.

In fact, we have been inundated with a large amount of amendments that have affected radically the administration of justice; some of the changes are positive and have proved conducive to more efficiency while others have had the opposite effect.

On the other hand, however, the government has strangely avoided from reflecting on the necessary amendments that could address the more fundamental and indispensable attributes of the judiciary, matters dealing with the issue of the independence of our judiciary.

It is my humble opinion that we have reached the point where it has become indispensable to start considering these matters and do so calmly and across party lines.

Undoubtedly, more amendments are required to the Constitution in order to further strengthen the independence of the judicial organ of state.

This, undoubtedly, requires the acquiescence of both sides of the House of Representatives and, therefore, such reforms require consensus.

Hopefully, in the not too distant future, the Minister of Justice will set the ball rolling.

Dr Herrera is a Labour member of Parliament.

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