Uganda, March 20 -- The other side of the coin of judicial independence is judicial accountability. To avert the spectre of tyranny by the judges, their decisional autonomy comes with a duty of accountability to the people on whose authority they exercise judicial power.

Judicial accountability is therefore synonymous with the transformative concepts such as 'explanatory accountability' or 'judging judges'-meaning that the modern judge can be asked by the citizen to give an account as to why they behaved in a particular way. This requires individual judges, and the courts as an institution, to bear the responsibility for actions, policies or decisions that are contrary to constitutional or legal standards.

As our Supreme Court said in A...