"I call on you, the judiciary, to respect yourself and regain the confidence of the people. Make of yourself something to be proud of and a model, not an object of whispers and accusations...
I have high regard for the judiciary and I respect its personnel but I wish to say to you what some of our elders said in a previous era with respect to learning and learned people: Had the men of learning safeguarded their learning, such learning would have safeguarded them; had they elevated learning in their souls, learning would have elevated them; but they insulted it and smeared its face with dirt. This is what happened to those we used to know as the preachers of Sultans. We do not wish to see this becoming, God forbid, a feature of justice or of the judges.
Now I ask why is justice in Lebanon the way it is? Why is it that there exist in Lebanon only two branches of government: the legislative and the executive? Why is there no judicial branch in the full meaning of the word, enjoying full independence, immune from all other branches, and exercising all (such power) as exercised by the judicial power in the countries where the judiciary has reached the stage where it is the power that protects the big as well as the small and is trusted by the week more so than the powerful. Why does not Lebanon establish for itself a favor that has no parallel, I guess, in the region: to establish an independent judicial power
If they are unable to uphold justice, they will perish..."
(Sheikh Ayatullah Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddine is the Chairman of the High Islamic Shiite Council of Lebanon and the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shiites. He delivered his speech to an audience including a large number of judges. Among the judges present were most of the members of the Higher Judicial Council, including the chief justice.)