Lesage sets out what will hopefully be accepted as the correct approach to cases of apparent bias, say James Guthrie QC & Rowan Pennington-Benton
The doctrine of apparent bias requires that judges be free not only from subjective personal bias or prejudice, but also from potential public perception of the same. Tribunals must appear in an objective sense to be truly independent and impartial. This perception is essential to maintaining public confidence in the judiciary and the legal system as a whole. The legal system is a central social good in any successful state. Its substantive, as well as apparent, integrity is an important matter.
Porter v Magill
With this in mind, the House of Lords in Porter v Magill [2002] 2 AC 357, [2002] 1 All ER 465, rejected the previous tests of “reasonable likelihood” and “real danger” of apparent bias on the basis that they tended to place too much emphasis on the court’s assessment of the facts, rather than public perceptions. It is, after all, these latter perceptions with which the doctrine is concerned. The current
