Read the Judge then the Law.

Law schools teach us how to read the law. Court rooms teach us how to read the judge. In theory this is called as behavioral school of jurisprudence. Read the judge then the law. This legal realism is the most important teaching which almost all of us missed while getting bored with the lectures of jurisprudence. Reading the judge is the most important part of law practice. 

Hitherto, law courts are presided over by human beings and like any other human made system, courts are very much dependent on the mindset and behavior of the person sitting in the chair. Impersonal interpretation of law is a utopia. Law schools taught us that the law is universal but in practice it is based on individual judges' interpretation. Our legal system works on ‘court to court basis’.  

Judicial interpretation has no fundamental rules (barring few principles of statutory interpretation). It is largely based on behavioral aspect of the judges. As it is said there is no absolute philosopher. Every philosopher is the product of his own circumstances. It is true with the judges too. There is no absolute definition of judicial behavior except an old English grammar lesson in comparisons, which says “as sober as a judge”. Every judge is the product of his own learning of law and the life.

Indian constitutional scheme vests the judges in higher courts with unfettered discretion. Except self-restraint, system does not provide many checks to balance the power of judges. Discretionary remedy to the judges  was provided by the constitutional framers against the violative power of the state to safeguard people. Power either of state or exercised by the judges on behalf of the state has a natural tendency of encroachment.

‘Self-restraint’ of judges in law courts is a failing idea at best.

“Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.”

                           -Plato, The Republic, Book III.
Kartikey