Are judges government lawyers?

• Yes and no. All judges have a legal background and have usually practised as lawyers for many years.
• They are appointed by the government of the day and the government pays their salary.
• However once they have been appointed they are independent of the government and are expected to act accordingly.
• This is what is known as the ‘separation of powers’ between the government and the judiciary.
• The government cannot tell a judge what to do or how to decide a case.
• Judges are accountable to the public and the higher courts. They need to give detailed reasons for their decisions and the correctness of these reasons can be tested through the appeal process of each jurisdiction.