JSC fails to convince Civil Court of its misconduct complaints procedure

The JSC is currently defending itself against allegations of allowing bias and favouritism to influence its decisions on complaints of judiciary misconduct and was yesterday required to provide documentary evidence to the court proving the contrary. However, the evidence may have opened up more questions about its operations in the court.

The current case relates to action being taken by Treasure Island Limited, which is suing the JSC over allegations that the body had dismissed three complaints of misconduct it made against Interim-Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy and Judge Ali Naseer for reasons of favour and bias towards the judges.

Civil Court Judge Mariyam Nihayath said that the documents submitted by JSC did not clarify for her – as had been claimed they would – that a standard operations procedure was in place to prevent arbitrary decision-making on complaints of judiciary misconduct. She added instead that the documents submitted to court by JSC as evidence had raised questions of whether the commission had any procedure at all for dealing with complaints.