The policy of starvation does not build justice: when the judge passes from the status of guardian of the law to that of victim of power

Yemen

Yamanat

The Yemeni justice system has never experienced a more cruel and humiliating stage than its current stage, because starvation is no longer an occasional method, but rather a systematic policy that targets the livelihood, status and reputation of the judge, under flashy headlines, whose apparent meaning is “reform” and the internal meaning is the dismantling of what remains of an independent judicial authority.

After judges were prevented from drafting contracts and legal information, the latest Circular No. (15) of the Judicial Inspection Authority of 1447 AH came to complete the siege by preventing judges from carrying out divisional work, even though this is the core of their legal and scientific competence and a manifestation of their established judicial experience.

So that the real objective is not revealed, phrases about “justice” and “judicial guard” were included in the circular to convey it to public opinion, even though these tasks are rare and are not entrusted to a judge.

It is a disguised attempt to drain the resources of the honorable judge who does not reach out to anyone and to trap him between hunger and need, until he becomes a submissive follower rather than a guardian of justice.

Between starvation and mutilation

It would have been better for the state – if it was truly concerned about the integrity and prestige of the judiciary – to start by announcing an increase in judges’ salaries enough to ensure them a decent living, before declaring war on their legitimate sources of income.

A judge whose salary does not exceed four hundred dollars, while the rent for his only apartment reaches nearly two hundred dollars, how can we ask him to live with dignity?

How can anyone expect him to be a bulwark of justice when his family has nothing to support?

Indeed, the comparison becomes painful when we know that the salary of a judge in Somalia – emerging from a civil war – is no less than two thousand dollars per month!

Is this the reward for those who occupy the judicial secretariat in Yemen?

The accusation of corruption… is the result of incitement, not proof

In official media discourse, judges have become easy suspects of corruption, not as a result of evidence or a specific incident, but rather as a result of a systematic incitement to distort the image of the judge before the people to justify the failure of the state to administer justice.

While some legitimate sources of income (such as drafting contracts or divisional work) covered what salary could not cover, they were all closed by successive decisions.

Here the crucial question arises:
If the doors to legal livelihood are closed to judges and they don’t have enough pay left for a week, what will they be charged with?
Isn’t this an incentive to accept bribes?
Isn’t it contradictory that the state criminalizes subsistence causes and then deplores the corruption it creates with its own hands?

The corruption of power does not justify the demonization of judges
Today, political power is trying to place the responsibility for its failure and that of its historical predecessor in matters of administration and justice on the judges themselves, even if the real corruption is administrative and financial, accumulated over decades of political corruption, starting from the head of power and not under the pen of the judge.

A judge who works in a dilapidated court, with no electricity, no papers, no employees, and no operating expenses, and who is then accused of corruption because he demands a decent living, is the victim of corruption, not its creator.

Anyone who is deliberately starved and then condemned in the media is destined to be reviled and not reformed.

Reform of the judicial system cannot be achieved through starvation
Justice is not built on empty stomachs or diminished dignity.

Any reform that begins by starving the judge is corruption in the name of reform.

An honorable judge needs a decent salary, not a political sermon, a respectable work environment and no generalizations that restrict his livelihood.

Anyone who wants to reform the judicial system should start by reforming the State that administers it, and not by humiliating those who evaluate its balance.

Distorting the judge… a systematic policy
The most dangerous of these circulars is not their administrative content, but rather their political message: the attempt to distort the judge before public opinion and to convince that the judge is the cause of corruption, with a view to his exclusion and his politicized replacement.

If political leaders believe they have the right to rebuild the justice system or appoint new judges, let them do so through official channels and in accordance with standards of competence and integrity, and not by destroying the image of the previous judge, distorting his history and starving him until he leaves the judicial service by force and not by choice.

Judges are not afraid of replacement or change. Instead, they want thousands of new judicial officials to be appointed to ease the enormous burden that has exhausted them and damaged their health and lives, but they refuse to be presented to public opinion as “corrupt” to justify a chronic political failure in which they have no part.

A final word
The judge is not an opponent of the State, but rather its pillar and its balance. If the balance is upset, justice collapses and the state collapses.

Therefore fear God in the judicial system, preserve its prestige and do not make the judge a victim of corruption instead of the sword of justice being upon him.

A hungry judge cannot be free, and he who has no freedom has no justice.

Law and Judicial Portal… A position and a conscience, in favor of the reform of the judicial power, against the assassination of the dignity of judges, with the fight against corruption, and against its personalization in the body of justice and its guards.

City of Law and Justice portal

Yemen