AN EXPANSION IN THE CONTENT OF THE RIGHT TO HEARING OVER THE YEARS LED BY A RIGHT-ORIENTED APPROACH OF THE COURTS

Abstract

The many rules of natural justice have grown in tandem with the development of civilisation and the content of its principles are often acknowledged as an accurate measure of the level of civilisation and Rule of Law prevalant in the community. As a shield against the excesses of organised, authoritative power, human beings are naturally inclined to appeal to a construct that extends beyond their own creation. Such a construct is often construed to be God and His law, which contitutes divine law or natural law, to which all temporal laws and actions must conform. This idea forms the origin or the conception of natural justice, and the principles of which innately operate along the lines of fairness, reasonableness, equity and equality; and any deviation from these tenets thereof may subvert the State apparatuses of law and destabilize the entire legal machinery. The principles of natural justice and the various doctrines attributed to it that function as necessary integrants may be observed in the legal process quite persistently. The application and empolyment of techniques of natural justice, as derived from its various principles, tenets and doctrines, is not a stranger to the process of law and its implementation in the the legal praxis; and especially in the Justice delievery and reasoning system, the application of the rules of natural justice is not new; so much so, that its familiarity in the legal system has been greatly acknowledged, as it has driven home the assumption of being, so to say, it is assumed to be “an essential inbuilt component” of the judicial mechanism1 , that is imperative to the decision making process, and more specifically in those matters that pertain to the rights and liberties of the populous.