A c c o u n t a b i l i t y, s e p a r a t i o n o f p owe r s a n d t h e L a t ime r H o u s e P r i n c i p l e s : Te n y e a r s o n Commonwealth Governance Handbook 2013/14 21 the procedure used by the ACT legislature as a model that can and should be adopted for implementation across the Commonwealth to ensure good governance. Recently the Commonwealth Secretariat commissioned the CLA, CMJA, CLEA and CPA as members of the Latimer House Working Group to develop a training and education toolkit with the aim of promoting dialogue and enhancing the respect between the three branches of power. It is hoped that the toolkit will help member states to implement the principles and increase awareness of their provisions. The CMJA, which is the only association bringing together judicial officers at all levels to improve standards and strengthen judicial independence, acts as the secretariat for the Latimer House Working Group. An independent judiciary is a cornerstone of democracy, human rights and good governance, and it is the right of every citizen in the Commonwealth. As such, the quality of a country's Judiciary is paramount not only to the fundamental well being of the people but also to the stability of society and economic development. In 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution calling on ‘all states to guarantee the independence of judges and lawyers and the objectivity and impartiality of prosecutors, as well as their ability to perform their functions accordingly, including by taking effective legislative, law enforcement and other appropriate measures that will enable them to carry out their professional functions without interference, harassment, threats or intimidation of any kind’.13 However, far too often the judiciary is seen as a department of state to be treated and compared with other departments and not as a separate branch of government with equal responsibilities and duties to those given to parliament or the executive to protect the rule of law. An independent judiciary free from political or other interference is not a privilege of a judge or magistrate but the right of every citizen of the Commonwealth. Given the existing threats to good governance in the Commonwealth, it is essential that the Commonwealth Charter be not relegated to the status of an aspirational document of merely historical interest. The charter must be seen as a commitment to the core Commonwealth values including the Commonwealth (Latimer House) principles and as a benchmark against which the performance of all Commonwealth countries should be judged. Endnotes 1 Universal Declaration on Democracy – The Inter- Parliamentary Union, 1997, http://www.ipu.org/cnl-e/161- dem.htm 2 Justice Alliance v President 2012 1 LRC 66 at 40 3 Article 1 – Commonwealth (Latimer House) Principles on the Three Branches of Government – 2003 4 Principles – Commonwealth Latimer House Guidelines on Parliamentary Supremacy and Judicial Independence – 1998 5 Closing Address by Kamalesh Sharma at the Edinburgh Colloquium 6 Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global Rules – Philippe Sands QC, Penguin Books 2006 7 Chapter XI 8 Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit – now the Commonwealth Advisory Bureau 9 Published in November 2009 10 Chief Justice P. N. Bhagwati India, ‘Democracy and the Rule of Law’, the Vigil Lanka Movement and the Asian Legal Resource Centre ALRC Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 1997 11 A full copy of the report is available at http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/downloads/reports/LHP%2 0Report%20final.pdf 12 J Halligan (chair), ‘An assessment of the performance of the three branches of government in the ACT against Latimer House Principles’, Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), Institute for Governance, University of Canberra, 2011. http://www.governanceinstitute.edu.au/magma/media/uploa d/publication/200_An-assessment-of-the-performance-ofthe three-branches-of-government-in-ACT-against-Latimer- House-principles.pdf 13 A/HRC/23/L.9 – Human Rights Council resolution on the ‘Independence and impartiality of the judiciary, jurors and assessors, and the independence of lawyers’ – Twenty-third session, June 2013 Dr Karen Brewer is Secretary General, Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association (CMJA) and secretary to the Latimer House Working Group. She was brought up in Francophone Africa (People’s Republic of the Congo and Senegal) and studied public law at Dakar University, completing her LLM in French public law at Montpelier University and her doctorate in international law at the Sorbonne University. She was previously international relations officer at the Law Society of England and Wales.
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