An inquiry commissioned by the attorney general confirmed an internal investigation scooped by MTV3 in summer revealed some judges of the Helsinki Courts of Appeal harassed women sexually at parties and used racist language, according to MTV3, which cites Helsingin Sanomat.
Read full story (in Finnish) here.
The internal investigation, which revealed that some judges acted in a sexist manner parties, revealed as well that they used racist and derogatory labels to name blacks, Russians, Jews and gays.
One of the claims made by a story on Helsingin Sanomat is the Helsinki Courts of Appeal doesn’t believe that the racist behavior of the judges didn’t have any bearing on the sentences they pronounced.
While we don’t have enough information about this case except for an MTV3 story and another one written by Finland’s largest daily, one could rightly ask how could such racist and sexist behavior by judges not impact their impartiality especially in cases involving migrants and gays?
Even if the original investigation doesn’t mention the Romany minority, I wonder what the judges think of them.
A judge is a public figure and his credibility hinges on his or her impartiality. Making racist comments and treating women in a demeaning manner at parties destroys such credibility in one blow.