This article presents the results of an empirical study designed to assess the degree of convergence and divergence between public opinion and the fictional Fair Minded Observer (FMO) test used to determine whether a judge ought to be disqualified on the grounds of possible bias. As part of the test, judges imagine whether an FMO would see a risk of bias on the part of the judge. To the extent that the FMO is partly meant to reflect public perception, the obvious weakness in the test is that no one has tested public attitudes to the risk of judicial bias specifically. We conducted nationally representative public surveys in the UK and Australia, asking respondents what they think about different situations of possible bias (N = 2064). Our results indicate that a gap exists between the FMO created by the courts and public opinion in both countries across a number of scenarios thought to give rise to possible bias, including financial relationships, the risk of prejudgement and fact patterns based on leading cases.

中文翻译：

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公正的观察者对司法公正的真正看法

本文介绍了一项实证研究的结果，该研究旨在评估公众舆论与虚构的公正观察者 (FMO) 测试之间的趋同和分歧程度，该测试用于确定法官是否应该因可能的偏见而被取消资格。作为测试的一部分，法官会想象 FMO 是否会看到法官存在偏见的风险。就 FMO 部分旨在反映公众看法而言，该测试的明显弱点是没有人专门测试过公众对司法偏见风险的态度。我们在英国和澳大利亚进行了具有全国代表性的公共调查，询问受访者他们对可能存在偏见的不同情况的看法 (N = 2064)。