The dangerous Ethos that a judge is always neutral
Introduction:
Is it not an absurd to keep alive the artificial, orthodox tradition of the “ideal judge”? The rational alternative is to recognize that judges are fallible human beings” (Jerome Frank, Law and the Modern Mind).
Still, Many scholars (or should I say too many scholars) are still preaching in Israeli law schools the old message of “judges are above personal influence or personal beliefs” when they make their decisions. These scholars are trying to keep alive the old beliefs that a judge makes his decision solely on “legal grounds” and as a result these scholars are influencing not only new students and newcomers to the legal field but also the public in general .
Maybe this explains why Israelis still hold too much trust in judges and the Judicial system in general?
Judges are human beings just as we are, and therefore have flaws as we do. They also get mad as we do, get distracted (even during a hearing), wake up in a bad mood, and make decisions under many different influences as well, just as we do.
Dr. Daniel Kahneman (Nobel prize winner) wrote in his book (Thinking Fast and Slow) about the very interesting results of a recent research among judges in Israel.
“A disturbing demonstration of depletion effects in judgment was recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The unwitting participants in the study were eight parole judges In Israel. They spend entire days reviewing applications for parole. The cases are presented in random order and the judges spend little time on each one, an average of 6 minutes. (the default decision is denial of parole; only 35% of requests are approved. The exact time of each decision is recorded, and the times of the judges three food breaks – morning break, lunch, and afternoon break – during the day are recorded as well.) the authors of the study plotted the proportion of approved requests against the time since the last food break. The proportion spikes after each meal, when about 65% of requests are granted. During the two hours or so until the judges’ next feeding, the approval rate drops steadily, to about zero just before the meal. As you might expect, this is a welcome result and the authors carefully checked many alternative explanations. The best possible account of the data provides bad news: Tired and hungry judges tend to fall back on the easier default position of denying requests for parole. Both fatigue and hunger probably play a role.”
Disqualification of a judge:
To request a disqualification of a judge one has to ask the judge himself or the Supreme Court. Only about 5% of these requests are granted! Therefore it is wise to navigate the system rather than asking for a disqualification of the presiding judge.
The relevance for new immigrants:
Too many new immigrants believe they “can win in court”, “they have a perfect-winning case”, etc. What they find extremely hard to understand is that a court room is presided not by a G-d (even if some judges feel that way) but by a human being.
The lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language and how the system works is already a burden on a new immigrant. This is in addition to having to confront an opponent in a court room, and not understanding the psychology of the game.
A word of wisdom:
We try to help you to understand the psychology of the game in other words the psychology of the court room.
When approaching us for legal assistance we try to guide you through the system but in addition we believe that you will need more than just technical guidance. You will also need a smart approach and to be couched properly about the way you should behave in a court room.
Learning how to behave in court, how to speak in court, and how to get the judge’s attention or how to make the irrelevant relevant, can be the difference between winning or losing a court case in Israel. Even in a small claims court.
