Impartiality

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title: "Impartiality" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["legal-ethics", "criminal-justice", "concepts-in-political-philosophy"] description: "Principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria" topic_path: "philosophy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impartiality" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria ::

Impartiality (also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness) is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.

Legal concept

The BBC (guided by Reithianism as its foundation) has, as its principles, impartiality, in respect of media bias in broadcasting.

European Union law refers in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to:

• A right to good administration: :"Every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union."
• A right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial: :"Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law."

References

References

1. (12 November 2021). "What does impartiality mean? BBC no-bias policy being pushed to limits". The Guardian.
2. (26 October 2012). "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union". Council and Commission, European Parliament.
3. (26 October 2012). "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union". Council and Commission, European Parliament.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::