The Instrumentalisation of Justice

The integrity of our state legal systems sits at the very heart of a functioning democracy. When courts are fair, some citizens are protected. However, across the globe, we are witnessing a quiet but dangerous shift. It is currently, the deliberate manipulation of the judiciary to serve political and economic power (the scared men of the elite facing their shame in everyday truths that are unfolding about their behaviour, not just as individuals, but as groups).

Is this the precise core of the entire issue? These thoughts strip away the clinical, academic language of international law and expose the raw, desperate motive underneath: pure self-preservation. They are dismantling the infrastructure of justice because they are terrified of exposure, responsibility, and accountability.

Sharing: The transcript of Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, detailing how this crisis is now unfolding for us as a society.

Official Transcript: Margaret Satterthwaite, UN Special Rapporteur

Judicial appointments are the entry point into the judiciary. They determine who is entrusted with the authority to decide cases, interpret the law, protect rights, and hold power to account. For that reason, the way judges reach office is central to the right of every person to a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal established by law. This report builds on my previous work on safeguarding the independence of judicial systems in the face of contemporary challenges to democracy.

As I emphasised in my previous report, attacks on democracy increasingly target justice systems. Appointment procedures are one of the places where those pressures appear most clearly. Changes to appointment rules, the weakening of judicial councils, the use of temporary appointments and strategic appointments to senior judicial office can all be used to reshape or even capture institutions and undermine their independence.

People turned to judicial systems for protection, accountability, and the vindication of their rights. Human rights law reflects this expectation by guaranteeing equal access to the protection of the law. Yet in my work as Special Rapporteur, I increasingly see justice systems being diverted from this purpose. Across regions. I have observed that courts, prosecutors, and legal procedures are being used as tools to serve powerful economic or political interests, to silence and punish those claiming their rights, and to punish those.

Staying in corruption or abuse Following expert consultations and with the support of the Office for High Commissioner for Human Rights, I have developed a position paper that proposes the term instrumentalisation to encompass the many ways justice systems are being misused to punish, intimidate, and inflict harm. The instrumentalisation of the justice system is a human rights violation. To help state, civil society and international community identify and address this problem, my paper proposes a working.

Mission and sets out applicable human rights standards.

How Democracies Quietly Erode

Satterthwaite’s address exposes a reality for current civil societies: democratic backsliding is rarely loud, but the grouping of people is becoming more transparent as the days go on. It does not look like tanks on the street. Instead, it begins with subtle, bureaucratic changes to administrative legal frameworks. By focusing heavily on the primary entry point of the bench, which is the appointment process, hostile political actors successfully capture entire legal systems without ever altering constitutional text.

When the explicit rules governing how a judge reaches high office are altered, the entire mechanism of public accountability fails. My own civil case in 1994 supports this theory, as the district judge was not only a neighbour of the perpetrator and his father, but also a friend of the father and a fellow member of the Freemasons. This person, a bad actor, should have recused himself immediately, yet he refused to do so, and, in that moment, he conspired to deceive the court, the public, and me as the victim.

These are not a detached, abstract legal issues, as behaviours directly threaten individual liberties and destroys lives at a local level. When independent judicial councils are systematically weakened, underfunded, or packed with partisan allies, the court bench ceases to function as a neutral arbiter. It transforms into an echo chamber that rubber-stamps executive overreach, protects insiders, and legalises the suppression of dissent.

Rushing Flawed Technology into the Courts

Alongside these human biases and systemic captures, a newer, equally alarming threat is quietly entering the legal landscape. Artificial intelligence is being rapidly introduced into the judicial process, despite the reality that the technology is currently flawed, prone to errors, and nowhere near one hundred per cent workable.

Deploying unproven automated systems to assist with legal research, evidence sorting, or risk assessments creates a dangerous layer of detachment. When a flawed algorithm is used to guide judicial decisions, the human element of accountability vanishes entirely behind a screen. This rush to implement unready technology does not improve efficiency but instead introduces new systemic errors that can easily be exploited by bad actors to further manipulate legal outcomes.

Defining Instrumentalisation as a Human Rights Crisis

The introduction of the term ‘instrumentalisation’ by the Special Rapporteur is a vital conceptual breakthrough for international law. For too long, the abuse of legal systems has been hidden behind polite terms like judicial inefficiency or politicisation.

Instrumentalisation names the phenomenon as the weaponisation of the law to inflict harm.

When a state uses prosecutors, police, and judges to target dissidents, journalists, or anti-corruption activists, it commits human rights violations. This inversion of justice turns the court into a weapon of oppression. Instead of checking state power, the judiciary enforces it blindly.

The consequences of this shift are devastating for civil society:

1. The Chilling Effect: Activists and whistleblowers stop speaking out, knowing the courts offer no protection.
2. Economic Inequality: Wealthy corporations and political elites exploit legal loopholes with total impunity.
3. Loss of Public Trust: Citizens completely abandon faith in legal institutions, leading to societal instability.

Institutional Capture

Institutional capture happens in stages, usually hidden behind legal jargon.

First, the ruling power introduces minor changes to appointment criteria under the guise of efficiency or reform.

Next, independent oversight bodies are starved of funding or replaced by political appointees.

Once the infrastructure is compromised, the actual weaponisation begins. Activists face endless, fabricated legal battles designed to drain their financial resources and ruin their reputations. Judges who refuse to comply find themselves reassigned to remote districts, passed over for promotion, or subjected to intense smear campaigns.

This creates an environment where only compliant judges thrive. The legal system continues to look functional from the outside, but its internal purpose has been completely corrupted. It serves power, not the law.

A Framework for Global Resistance

Satterthwaite’s position paper is a practical toolkit. Safeguarding the rule of law requires unceasing vigilance from the public, the legal profession, and international observers. Legal frameworks must remain entirely transparent, appointments must be strictly merit-based, and judicial councils must be completely insulated from executive third-party overreach. When the independence of judges is compromised, the fundamental rights of every single citizen are compromised alongside them.