Saturday, November 27, 2010

Dictum of the day, or on failed fait legis

Finally, it must be noted that if it were possible that a party could engineer the dismissal or recusal of a Judge simply by writing defamatory or uncomplimentary material about him or her in order to claim the existence of bias or the appearance of bias, then the functioning of a court or tribunal would be negated by the simple mechanism of writing such material in respect of the entire bench. Such a consequence would defeat the wider interest of justice. Thus, this argument has no merit.

Prosecutor v. Vojislav Šešelj, IT-03-67-R77.3, Decision on motion of professor Vojislav Šešelj for the disqualification of judges O-Gon Kwon and Kevin Parker, ICTY, 19.11.2010, para. 33.

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