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Complaints against Judges and Judicial Officers

Number of Complaints Disposed of by the Chief Justice and the Court Leaders *	Nature of Complaints				2020 Total
	Judicial / Statutory Decision	Judicial Conduct	Both Judicial / Statutory Decision and Judicial Conduct	Dissatisfaction with the Court Leader’s handling and / or findings of the original complaints	2020 Total
Chief Justice	3	123ⁱⁱ	4 286ⁱⁱⁱ	7	4 419
Chief Judge of the High Court	20	0	0	NA	20
Chief District Judge	13	1	2	NA	16
Chief Magistrate	992^iv	1	111^v	NA	1 104
Sub-total	1 028	125	4 399	7	5 559

* If a Court Leader considers it inappropriate for him/her to handle a complaint as this may lead to any real or perceived conflict of interest, he/she may instruct another judge to handle the complaint.

Notes:
i	During the period under report, there has been a marked increase in the number of complaints against Judges and Judicial Officers (JJOs). This is owing to the surge in the number of identical or similar complaints against JJOs in relation to certain court decisions and court cases. In 2020, a total of 5 559 complaints have been disposed of. Among which, 5 488 are related to those identical or similar complaints. In accordance with the cardinal principle of judicial independence, complaints against judicial or statutory decisions cannot and will not be dealt with. Any dissatisfaction with judicial or statutory decisions can only be dealt with by way of appeal or review through existing legal procedures.
ii	Identical or similar complaints related to one court case.
iii	Identical or similar complaints related to one court case.
iv	Including 983 identical or similar complaints relating to 70 court cases.
v	Including 96 identical or similar complaints related to one court case.
vi	The total number of cases filed in 2020 is 460 003.
vii	Complaint related to judicial conduct can be broadly classified according to their nature. Among complaints involving judicial conduct above, 8 complaints are related to attitude and behavior in court, 4 510 are related to handling of actual proceedings in court, 1 is related to conduct not directly related to court work and 5 related to mixed nature.
viii	Among the complaint cases related to judicial conduct, there is one partially justified case (i.e. the case indicated under Note iii). The complaints were that the District Judge’s comments in the Reasons for Sentence gave rise to a perception of bias. The Chief Justice has looked into the case. Judges and judicial officers must not be biased nor, just as important, be reasonably perceived to be biased for or against any persons or causes. The concerned Reasons for Sentence caused controversy in that there is a risk that some reasonable, fair-minded and well informed persons could reasonably take the view that the aforesaid principles might have been compromised in that a wrong perception was given. The Chief Justice had reminded the relevant judge of these important principles mentioned above in discharging judicial duties. It was decided that the relevant Judge should not for the time being deal with cases involving a similar political context.
ix	The above table only reports the number of those identical or similar complaints that were fully disposed of. For those identical or similar complaints involving complaints against more than one court case and the outcome of investigation regarding complaints of one or more court case(s) are to be provided upon the completion of all relevant court proceedings and conclusion of investigation, such statistics will be reported upon full disposal of complaints of all court case(s). The number of complaints disposed of only include complaints with the provision of the obligatory information (correspondence addresses and names).