The overall purpose of the project is to improve the administration of justice by assessing the differences between the actual and perceived impartiality of judges. The perception of judges’ impartiality is to be measured through the evaluations of a “reasonable observer,” and through the comparison of the observed data with the factors constituting the impartiality principles set by the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct (objective evaluation).

The parties’ perceptions will be obtained by interviewing both the plaintiffs and defendants (perceived impartiality). The differences between the objective and subjective evaluations of a judge’s conduct will then be identified through the comparison of the data obtained from both the observers (actual impartiality) and parties (perceived impartiality), and by identifying factors that make the evaluations of the parties deviate from those of the observers.