[ad_1]
On November 9, the President of India will administer the oath of office to the 50th Chief Justice of India (CJI). Justice D Y Chandrachud assumes the office of CJI at a critical time when there are a lot of expectations from the judiciary. He has outstanding academic qualifications, having studied among the best universities in India and abroad — the University of Delhi and Harvard Law School. He has been at the forefront of efforts to protect the rule of law and promote access to justice, having authored several important judgments and helped advance progressive jurisprudence. Justice Chandrachud will also be the youngest person in the last 10 years to be appointed as the CJI, besides having the longest tenure, of over two years, in recent times.
While the debate relating to the appropriate procedure for the appointment of judges continues to occupy the political space, there are also age-old issues relating to the role of the judiciary in a democracy. Recently, Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju observed, “Should the judiciary run the country or should the elected government?… Now if the judiciary starts framing the rules, if they start deciding where the road is to be built, if the judiciary gets into the service rules, what is the government for…”
This is not the first time a minister has asked these questions. They raise larger questions, especially when the judiciary is directly involved in fulfilling the goals of constitutionalism, protection of rights and freedoms and seeking accountability from those in power.
The incoming CJI will have several demands on his time and the institutional and social expectations on the judiciary are profound. I believe that there are five critical aspects of the justice delivery mechanism that need attention.
The first is the appointment of judges. All organisations and institutions are fundamentally dependent on their ability to have outstanding people, with competence, integrity and independence, appointed to them. To appoint the right people to the Supreme Court and the high courts requires enormous effort and identification of talent from the legal profession and academia. It is important that the appointment process commits itself to three values, which ought to be deeply embedded in the mindset of the members of the collegium — transparency and integrity in the selection process of judges; making conscious efforts to promote diversity and inclusion with a stronger emphasis on including women in the higher judiciary, and attaching importance to the competence and abilities of individuals and overcoming the temptation to follow seniority as the basis for such appointments.
The second aspect that needs attention is training and capacity building. The nature of law and legal institutions has gone through dramatic transformations in the last few decades. While the establishment of the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal and the state judicial academies across the country are steps in the right direction, the pedagogy and intellectual approach towards training and capacity building needs to be reimagined. It is important to improve and transform the training, capacity building and educational development of HC and SC judges through innovative initiatives, including opportunities to pursue higher education (LLM and PhD). The Indian judiciary must work closely with universities and law schools to help bring greater intellectual depth and rigour to the development of law.
Also important is technological upgradation for democratising access to justice.
Technological upgradation needs to go beyond virtual hearings and the e-courts project. The civil and criminal justice systems, including various actors involved in this process as well the complete record management system, require technological intervention. There is a need to expand and strengthen the e-courts project to address issues of delays, pendency, and access to justice. Technology can also be used to improve efficiency in case management and overall court administration with a sharper focus on the subordinate courts of India. This also requires elaborate training for lawyers and judges at all levels of the court system.
Fourth is the establishment of the National Lawyers’ Academy, with the sole purpose of preparing lawyers for the future. The NLA is not a regulatory body, but a knowledge and capacity development organisation. It should be established with the help of judges and senior advocates as a national-level professional development organisation with a sharper focus on Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programmes, training and capacity development in new and emerging areas of law.
Finally, it is necessary to transform the landscape of legal education. The future of the legal profession and the judicial fraternity is dependent on the state of law schools and the quality of their graduates. Training lawyers and judges at a later stage would be in vain if the crisis of legal education is not addressed in a robust manner. Efforts led by the Bench to improve the quality of legal education ought to become a priority. With over 1,700 law schools producing nearly 1,00,000 law graduates every year in India, we are facing a monumental crisis of mediocrity. The radical reform of Indian law schools and the complete reimagination of legal education requires bold foresight and far-reaching reforms. This is an important priority item for the leadership of the Indian judiciary as it has substantial and profound implications for the future of the legal profession and the judiciary.
I believe this five-point agenda can help the office of the CJI chart a new course towards reimagining India’s law and justice system and institutions. I am confident that the 50th CJI has the intellectual acumen, courage of conviction and institutional farsightedness to seek and implement these reforms.
The writer is founding vice-chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana
[ad_2]
Source link
