The role of the judge is to enforce the law, not to defuse… social “noise”.
When we hear that the Supreme Judicial Council is “absolutely obliged” to renew the terms of office of Greek prosecutors serving in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office because of… noise, then a… parallel system of administering justice is created.
It doesn’t take a constitutional scholar to understand that the decisions of the Justice do not depend on the headlines and the mood of public opinion. The public sense of justice is manipulative and vindictive and if the judiciary blindly follows it, it turns into a popular court, which leads to the suppression of the rights of the accused.
The judge does not legislate, and when he “fixes” the law as he sees fit, he is effectively abusing the role of Parliament, which is the only one democratically legitimized to express the will of society through laws. This is a violation of the separation of powers.
The judge uses “public sentiment” not as a source of law, but as an interpretive tool only where the law is unclear (e.g. in concepts such as “morality”).
His job is to become a “buffer” to the impulses of the masses, applying the rule of law even when it is unpopular and not convenient to the “train” of… the rule of law.
