Giving each appropriate weight, and reconciling their apparently conflicting requirements, however, may require a deeper understanding of issues than is demonstrated by people who use those terms as argumentative incantations. In order to promote a better understanding by the public, and by judicial officers themselves, of this important subject, the Judicial Commission of New South Wales has produced this publication. One lesson to be learned from these papers is that the principles of judicial independence need to be made relevant to contemporary conditions and issues. They are not engraved on tablets of stone, and they were not formulated by some lawmaker of unquestioned authority. Finally, those of whom judges and magistrates claim to be independent do not always relish that independence.
Governments sometimes see judicial independence as a limitation upon their capacity to govern.
This results in a degree of tension and, from time to time, challenges to claims, and sometimes even to established principles, of independence. It is the duty of the judiciary to maintain its independence, and to encourage the public to value it. In order to do that, the judiciary, the media and the community generally need to have a well-informed understanding of the subject. This publication will be a valuable aid to such understanding. In a formal sense the doctrine of judicial independence is variously reposed in constitutional conventions, principles of common law and customs of parliament.