Bulletin Number Four 1987

‘Management fo r Executive Deve lopmen t’ Graduation Ceremony The Eighth Graduation Ceremony o f the Diploma Course in Management f o r Executive Development o f the Department o f Extramural Studies, The Chinese University o f Hong Kong, was held on 26th September ， 1987 at the Hotel Furama Inter-Continental. There were altogether sixty-one graduates. Dr. Francis K, Pan, Director o f Studies ， delivered a speech o f welcome and the Hon. Chief Justice Designate T.L. Yang officiated at the ceremony. While Justice Yang addressed the gathering on the significance and meaning o f 'The Independence o f Judiciary', Mrs. Yang presented prizes, diplomas and certificates to the graduates. The follow ing is the address by the Hon. Chief Justice Designate T.L. Yang: The Independence o f Judiciary It seems to be generally accepted that the government shall be o f law instead o f personal auth­ ority. It is therefore both right and necessary that the judiciary be called upon to lim it the role o f govern­ ment, particularly in its dealings w ith the people, whose fundamental freedoms are held to be inviolate. The judiciary thus occupies an anomalous position o f being part of the government and yet standing apart from it and independent o f it. The separateness o f the judiciary as a necessary feature o f the government was recognized as early as the time o f Aristotle. The process o f separation was however slow and incom­ plete. It was not firm ly established in England until about the eighteenth century. Even now, remnants o f judicial power, such as the power to pardon, still remain w ith the executive. The independence o f judiciary as a concept concerns the guaranteed right and duty o f the judges to deal w ith cases brought before them strictly ac­ cording to law, uninfluenced and unfettered by any extraneous considerations. Clearly, if the law is to be fairly interpreted and impartially applied, it is o f vital importance that the judges should enjoy an indepen­ dent status free from pressures o f any sort, whether they be exerted by the media or pressure groups, people in high places or the vox populi, or worst of all, by the executive branch o f government. Indeed, as Professor de Smith o f Cambridge in his book on Constitutional and Administrative Law said, ‘It is clearly o f great importance that justice be dispensed even-handedly in the courts and that the general public feel confident in the integrity and the impartiality o f the Judiciary. Where the Government o f the day has an interest in the outcome o f judicial proceedings, the court should not act merely as a mouthpiece o f the Executive. The Judiciary must therefore be secure from undue influence and auton­ omous w ithin its own field'. As part o f a political philosophy propounded by Montesquieu in his Doctrine o f Separation o f Powers, it has lost none o f its lustre and stature which it enjoyed in the eighteenth century, though the doctrine itself, intended to be o f universal application, is now regarded as outmoded, particularly by writers in England. Certainly in England, the so-called sepa­ ration between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary has never been as clear-cut as the Doctrine would like it to be. The Parliament, for example, is dominated by the government o f the day, and the Lord Chancellor as the head o f the judiciary, is also a cabinet minister. Another example is the appointment o f judges, which is on the nomination o f the Lord Chancellor or the Prime Minister. Montesquieu's doctrine is therefore not entirely supported by the actual state o f affairs in England, though no one would doubt that the judges in that country are tru ly 16