Judicial leadership suffers when we pretend judges are perfect: CJI Surya Kant

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 Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant. File.

Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant. File. | Photo Credit: ANI

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said that judicial enactment does not endure due to the fact that Judges are imperfect, but it is adversely impacted erstwhile judges unreal that they are not imperfect.

The CJI besides called for a extremist displacement successful however judicial enactment is perceived, advocating for the instauration of a ‘Commonwealth Apex Body’ to integrate judicial education, the Bar, and the seat crossed the subordinate nations.

Delivering the keynote code astatine the opening ceremonial of the 11th biennial gathering of the Commonwealth Judicial Educators (CJEs) here, Justice Surya Kant said that judges, similar judicial institutions, stay susceptible of growth, correction, and improvement.

The relation of judges demands not lone "mastery of precedent" but besides the "agility to construe the law" successful ways that service justness successful the contiguous time, helium said.

Across history, the astir respected judicial leaders did not task flawlessness oregon perfection; instead, the champion leaders were those who remained conscious of the limits of their ain knowledge, alert to the anticipation of error, and unfastened to learning, the CJI said.

"Humility, successful that sense, has ne'er been a idiosyncratic virtuousness alone; it has been a nonrecreational safeguard. And I judge this important instrumentality indispensable beryllium taught to each judicial officer, without exception," helium said.

On the event's theme, 'Educating for Judicial Leadership', Justice Surya Kant called it "timely" arsenic for excessively agelong the prevailing presumption was that judges were finished products; figures that emerged from appointment; already complete, already formed and already perfected.

"In my opinion, portion that presumption flatters the institution, it does not service it. Judicial enactment does not endure due to the fact that judges are imperfect; it suffers erstwhile we unreal they are not," the CJI said.

He besides said that for educating judicial leadership, a "more honorable premise" needed acceptance – judges, similar the institutions they lead, stay susceptible of growth, correction, and improvement.

"This is where, I believe, the Commonwealth Judicial Educators measurement in. CJEs are the quiescent architects down transformative journeys.

“Across our immense assemblage of nations – spanning continents, cultures and ineligible traditions – the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute (CJEI) guides judges to go much than specified interpreters of law, moulds them into omniscient custodians of justice, equipped to navigate the motivation and method challenges of a world-order successful flux," helium said.

The Chief Justice added that instrumentality is simply a living, breathing entity that evolves with the satellite astir it, and that the knowing of judges is tested erstwhile nine changes, caller challenges emerge, and analyzable questions arise.

"In specified a dynamic landscape, our relation arsenic judges demands not lone mastery of precedent but besides the agility to construe the instrumentality successful ways that service justness successful our times.

"And erstwhile we larn from each other, we guarantee that our decisions are not lone informed by the law, but besides the corporate contented of the planetary judiciary. Mutual learning is, thus, the lifeblood of judicial growth," the CJI said.

He appreciated the CJEI for linking judicial educators, encouraging adjacent learning, and enabling jurisdictions to larn from 1 different without erasing their chiseled contexts.

Published - February 14, 2026 12:13 p.m. IST

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