Introduction Every society that has law also has people who perform the role of a judge. They are officials who settle disputes by applying pre-existing standards and exercising judicial discretion when needed. Judges should protect rights, uphold justice and promote the common good among other things. Judges ought to conform to all of these standards when they apply the law. Judges have a moral as well as a legal obligation to apply the law. Do judges have an obligation to apply the law? Judges do have an obligation to apply the law. However, this obligation is not absolute and may be overridden or cancelled in certain situations. Michael Moore appears to share this view, ‘Law obligates judges in their role as judges; that does not mean …show more content…
The main job of a judge is to interpret and apply the law. The legislature is the body with the main law making powers, not the judge. The judge does however have power to invalidate laws that are unconstitutional. There is a check and balance system in place. Judicial review also means that judges sometimes do not have the final say, especially in lower courts. The higher courts have the power to review decisions and set them aside. The grounds are absence of jurisdiction, bias or corruption on the part of the presiding officer, gross irregularity in the proceedings, and the admission of inadmissible evidence. Certain statutes make provision for the decisions of magistrates or other judicial officers to be reviewed automatically by judges, meaning that the review is not initiated by an aggrieved individual but takes place by virtue of a statutory trigger. Judges are obliged to follow a code of ethics or conduct. They cannot behave in any manner they wish or they may be removed from the bench. A judge cannot choose not to apply law just because the specific law is in opposition to the judges own values and moral principles. Sometimes judges have to act against their own desires in order to uphold the law in their