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minded and informed person in deciding whether or not there is a reasonableapprehension of bias. 44Irrelevant grounds89. A judge’s religion, ethnic or national origin, gender, age, class, means orsexual orientation may not, as such, usually form a sound basis for an objection.Nor, ordinarily, can an objection be soundly based on the judge’s social,educational, service or employment background; a judge’s membership of social,sporting or charitable bodies; previous judicial decisions; or extra curricularutterances. However, these general observations depend on the circumstances of theparticular case and on the case before the judge.Friendship, animosity and other relevant grounds for disqualification90. Depending on the circumstances, a reasonable apprehension of bias might bethought to arise in the following cases:(a) If there is personal friendship or animosity between the judge and anymember of the public involved in the case;(b) If the judge is closely acquainted with any member of the public involvedin the case, particularly if that person’s credibility may be significant in theoutcome of the case;(c) If, in a case where the judge has to determine an individual’s credibility, heor she had rejected that person’s evidence in a previous case in terms sooutspoken that they throw doubt on the judge’s ability to approach thatperson’s evidence with an open mind on a later occasion;(d) If the judge has expressed views, particularly in the course of the hearing,on any question at issue in such strong and unbalanced terms that they castreasonable doubts on the judge’s ability to try the issue with an objectivejudicial mind; or(e) If, for any other reason, there might be a real ground for doubting thejudge’s ability to ignore extraneous considerations, prejudices andpredilections, and the judge’s ability to bring an objective judgment to bearon the issues.44 See Panton v Minister of Finance, Privy Council on appeal from the Court of Appeal ofJamaica, [2001] 5 LRC 132; Kartinyeri v Commonwealth of Australia, High Court ofAustralia, (1998) 156 ALR 300.72

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