“In determining whether there is a legitimate reason to fear that the
judge lacked independence or impartiality, it is important to ascertain
the standpoint of the accused and whether his doubts can be held to be
objectively justified.”
124.
The Applicant in this case, being an associate, and subordinate of the
Chief Justice, the apprehension of fear of bias, ordinarily, should have
emanated from the prosecutors in his trial but not him. However, he cited two
main grounds for his alleged apprehension of bias against him by the Chief
Justice; firstly, that the Chief Justice had previously been acquainted with one
of the cases in which the Applicant had been implicated by the House for
judicial impropriety at the Supreme Court; and secondly, since the initiation
of the impeachment proceedings against him, the Chief Justice had
pronounced on some applications at the instance of the Applicant. So, in the
view of the Applicant, considering his previous roles, vis-à-vis the
impeachment trial as a whole, the Chief Justice may not be an impartial judge
for the trial of his case.
125.
In the MORICE v. FRANCE - 29369/10 - Grand Chamber Judgment
[2015] ECHR 407 (23 April 2015 the European Court of Human Rights gave
a hint of what impartiality denotes when it held that:
“The Court reiterates that impartiality normally denotes the absence of
prejudice or bias and its existence or otherwise can be tested in various
ways. According to the Court’s settled case-law, the existence of
impartiality for the purposes of Article 6 § 1 must be determined
according to a subjective test where regard must be had to the personal
conviction and behavior of a particular judge, that is, whether the judge
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