those constituency concerns which can survive the gauntlet of the prevailing partisan ideology. At the end of any given parliamentary session, many public concerns lay scattered of necessity on the cutting room floor, awaiting either wider public endorsement or a newly elected partisan ideology. The judiciary has a different relationship with the public. It is accountable less to the public's opinions and more to the public interest. It discharges that accountability by being principled, independent, and impartial. Of all the public institutions responsible for delivering justice, the judiciary is the only one for whom justice is the exclusive mandate. This means that while legislatures respond of necessity of the urgings of the public, however we define it, judges, on the other hand, serve only justice. As Lillian Hellman once said: "I will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." This means that the occasional judgment will collide with some public expectations which will, inevitably, create controversy. But judgments which are controversial are not thereby illegitimate or undemocratic; they are, in fact, democracy at work. What of the role of public opinion? Should judges really transcend these views as they discharge their duties? Probably. Should they be aware of them anyway? Certainly. But first, we have to think about what public opinion really means and why it does not guide the courts the way it does legislatures. Society is horizontal and it is vertical, and it is practically impossible to know at which point a consensus emerges. Until we