Judicial Ethics

Judicial Ethics

What is ethics? How do ethics play a role in our judicial system? Is it possible that a judge can have to go against his own ethical beliefs? These are a few of the questions we will answer.

The first thing we have to ask ourselves is what is business ethics? Business ethics is distinct from personal ethics because it applies not just to an individual but also to an organization, or sometimes to an entire profession. (Introduction to Business Law, 2012)

Just as an individual or a business a judge has to have ethics as well. The reason in this is a judge is a person who makes case law. This is when you take someone to court or a business takes a person to court a judge makes a ruling on the matter by studying the findings in the case. They also have to look at other cases that were tried for some of the same reasons and see how the matters were handled. After doing all that the judge can then make a ruling on the case as to how it will come out. The ruling then becomes precedent. This means that it is binding in all the lower courts that made the decision on the matter. In saying all that just how does ethics play a role in this matter.

We need to know what jurisprudence is. This is the study of the philosophy behind the law. When it comes to this there are three primary schools of thought on this jurisprudence. The first would be natural law. Natural law is the theory that there are certain fundamental truths that are universal, and that all laws must exist within the framework of these laws. There was a political philosopher named Thomas Hobbs who listed 19 natural laws. When it come to them some of them were that every man should endeavor peace; that all men that mediate peace be allowed safe conduct. In saying this belief is that natural laws come from the basic moral codes of humanity. If the legal system is influenced by natural law then moral principles must also drive it.

Another philosophy would be that laws are simply made by people, and there is no necessary connection between laws and ethical or moral principles. Positivists believe that laws provide a determinate answer to legal questions. They believe that legality and ethics are entirely separate concepts under this philosophy.

While legal realism recognizes that people make the laws. They believe that the law does not necessarily determine the outcome of a particular situation. They believe that the application of the law determines what the law is. This means that the judge makes his decision based not only on the law but also on social principle, politics and morality.

So when it comes to being a judge and having ethics can be trying for some of them in today’s time and in the past. If you were a judge and you had a lady come before you begging the court for an abortion to save her own life but knowing it would harm another life. How are they supposed to handle the situation