Recusal

The Constitution vests a lot of power and certain amount of immunity in judges. Fairness and impartiality are the fundamental qualities to be possessed by a judge. Once it appears to the judge that he cannot deliver justice in an impartial manner, ethically he is expected to recuse. The right to recuse is given to the discretion of the judges. But the question that arises is whether such choices of significance be left to the prerogative of the individual judges. 

• Judges recuse themselves when they take no part in deciding cases that they would otherwise help decide. The judges to recuse themselves from cases where the judge has a financial interest in the case's outcome or where there is otherwise a strong possibility that the judge's decision will be biased. 
• Any party in a lawsuit may request that a judge recuse him or herself.
• This question is the pondering of circumstances where an act of recusal becomes a contravention to that judge’s legal responsibility and moral duty to hear a matter and deliver unprejudiced justice.
• Also, are the judges accountable for explaining the reasons for recusal to the concerned parties?
• The professional ethics behind recusal of a judge has to do with the opacity about the reasons as to which the recusal has happened. Since India is a liberal democracy, the citizens expect accountability from public servants. By not giving reasons to recusal the judge is putting herself under speculation by the public. 
• If a judge finds out that his brother/ sister judge recused for a specific reason, there could be an inclination from the new judge to give a favorable verdict for the party in whose favor the other judge recused.
• Recusal is not an instance where the judiciary is under threat as the aggrieved party would like to know why a judge has recused.
• Judges must give their reasons in writing for recusing themselves from specific cases.
• There has to be a requirement of statutory obligation on the judges to inform the litigants as to why there is a decision to recuse from hearing. Recusal should be used sparingly like the emergency provision in the Indian Constitution.

In a 1980 appeal against Shell and BP, in England, in which “the registrar of civil appeals was unable to assemble three judges who had no shares in either defendant.” Invariably, therefore, when a judge owns shares in one of the litigants what we expect is disclosure of the fact, and if neither party objects one might think it’s acceptable for the judge to hear the case. But in the absence of a well-defined rule that helps establish a basic standard, a decision of this kind can prove troubling somewhere down the line.

Independence and impartiality are the twin pillars without which justice cannot stand,
and the purpose of recusal is to underpin them - Sir Stephen Sedley

Absolute truth doesn't exist

There is no absolute truth and that’s the absolute truth. Truth is surprisingly difficult to define. Truth is defined as the body of real things, events, and facts. Truth is most often used to mean being in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or standard. Truth may also often be used in modern contexts to refer to an idea of "truth to self," or authenticity. The best-known saying about truth is by Aristotle "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true". It is not the only thing Aristotle said about truth.

• It’s doubtful whether there is any such thing as the truth.
• It is an absolute truth that absolute truth doesn't exist.
• Truth is agreement of thought with its object. 
• Truths are facts. And there are no facts, only interpretations.
• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
• The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real.
• Telling what is not true may result in legal and social penalties. 
• Truths are subjective; absolutism is objective. So, the question is whether something subjective can be objective.
• Anyone who believes in absolute truth is a fanatic or in imminent danger of becoming a fanatic. Absolute truth is the mother of extremism everywhere.
• Truth is in the eyes of the beholder. It may not appear as truth to others. 
• Absolute means completely. Try as you will, there will always be a trace of untruth. Nobody is capable of an absolute truth. Therefore, there is no such thing as absolute truth.
• People tend to have different opinions, which is natural. Because of these differing opinions some might view a certain topic morally right whereas others might see the same issue as completely immoral. 
• Deciding that absolute truth doesn’t exist is much more sensible than believing that they absolutely know everything.
• The idea of something being 100% right can always be challenged.
• In every statement, there is an ounce of bias, and bias is opinion, and opinion cannot be taken as fact.
• Truth comes only from the laws of nature. Nature always demonstrates its laws. Therefore truth is unique and universal.
• Let’s not ask what truth is. Let us ask instead how we can recognize it reliably when it appears. Four factors determine the truthfulness of the explanation: congruence, consistency, coherence, and usefulness.
• Truth is a complex, contradictory process in which error is constantly overcome through the development of knowledge, while truth itself becomes increasingly complete and profound.
• Any truth is objective. Subjective truth is merely an individual's opinion. Its content does not depend on the will, desire, passion or imagination of human beings. 
• We are humans who depend on relationships to survive. When it comes to stating your opinions without being asked, it is likely you shy away from telling a friend, colleague or family member something that you fear could hurt. As adults, we rarely choose to deliberately do something that will hurt people we know. We especially avoid sharing a truth face-to-face that could embarrass, offend or wound someone we like. 
• It’s been said that everybody lies, but the question is when, to whom, and why? And if someone is lying, how can you tell? The detection of deception is big business with big stakes. Children’s lies are ridiculously easy to spot, but as we get older, we get better at disguising the truth. We don’t necessarily get better at spotting it. 

Mahatma Gandhi said truth is what the voice within tells you. What may be truth for one may be untruth for another. It is not given to man to know the whole Truth. His duty lies in living up to the truth as he sees it, and in doing so, to resort to the purest means, i.e., to non-violence. God alone knows absolute truth. It follows that man, a finite being, cannot know absolute truth. Relative truth is all we know. Therefore, we can only follow the truth as we see it. Such pursuit of truth cannot lead anyone astray.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything ... Mark Twain

The truth is rarely pure and never simple ... Oscar Wilde 
Half a truth is often a great lie ... Benjamin Franklin

Truth can be stated in many different ways, 
yet each one can be true ... Swami Vivekananda

Why smart people are stupid?

It’s good to be smart. After all, intelligent people earn more money, accumulate more wealth, and even live longer. But intelligent people have a reputation for making dumb mistakes, especially in situations that require common sense. Smart people are more prone to silly mistakes because of blind spots in how they use logic. These blind spots exist because smart people tend to be overconfident in their reasoning abilities. That is, they’re so used to being right and having quick answers that they don’t even realize when they’re blowing it by answering without thinking things through.

• We’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe.
• When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. 
• We forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort.
• Their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. 
• In many instances, smarter people are more vulnerable to thinking errors. 
• We assume that intelligence is a buffer against bias. That’s why those with higher SAT scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakes and it can actually be a subtle curse.
• People who were aware of their own biases were not better able to overcome them.
• Intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy.
• Our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” 
• We excel at noticing the flaws of others and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves.
• We readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people.
• Intelligence seems to make things worse. 
• Smarter people (at least as measured by SAT scores) are more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. 
• The bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. 
• When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information. We see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. 
• When assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons. We lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray.
• The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. 
• Introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings. We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand.

Being smart can come at a cost. Asking tricky questions, doing the research and carefully thinking things through takes time. It’s also unpleasant. Most of us would rather do anything than think. Being smart can also upset people. Asking tough questions can quickly make you unpopular. Some of life’s greatest gifts, including high intelligence, can also come with challenges. If you aren’t willing to take an honest look at the whole picture, you’re selling yourself short. And that isn’t smart.

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Common sense is not so common ... Voltaire