People's Democracy

  Make Judiciary Accountable & Transparent

LAUNCHING a countrywide movement – by people and not just lawyers – is the urgent need of the hour to make the nation’s judicial system transparent, accountable and corruption-free.

This call emanated from a seminar on “Corruption in Judiciary, Accountability and Reform of Judicial System”  organised by All India Lawyers Union (AILU) at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on May 8. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and CITU president M K Pandhe, West Bengal assembly speaker Hashim Abdul Halim, former High Court judge Rajinder Sachhar, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan and writer-activist Arundhati Roy addressed the seminar which was chaired by AILU general secretary Hardev Singh.

There was absolute unanimity among the speakers on the need to reform the present judicial system and almost all agreed that the archaic, reactionary “contempt of court” provision must be scrapped. Arundhati Roy referring to the argument that courts must not be criticised as the institution would suffer said “How can this be true? On the contrary if criticism is blocked it will only breed contempt”. With the courts using the scope offered through public interest litigation (PIL) route to become activist judiciary, the situation today is that they are more powerful and more interventionist than political parties. “The courts have ecpanded their powers to a point where they are micro-managing our lives, be it construction of dams, eviction of slum dwellers, removal of industries, river linking etc”, said Arundhati Roy. She pointed out the danger of courts not being accountable with such huge powers and ended by underlining that the fight for making judiciary accountable is the most important struggles of the present time.

M K Pandhe in his speech threw light on how the courts in the present times of globalisation have been hitting the working class and its movement through various retrograde judgements. He referred to the banning of bandhs, the ban on right to strike, negating various earlier landmark judgements in favour of workers etc. He was clear that the judiciary was intervening against the interests of common man and was openly coming out against people’s movements. This was making the people lose faith in judiciary, he warned. The sorry plight of industrial tribunals, most of which have no heads for months together, was underlined by Pandhe. He demanded that the law needs to be changed for effective prevention of sexual harassment at workplace.

Pandhe ended his speech by calling for a nationwide campaign to generate awareness among the people on the need for judicial accountability. He said all appointments of judges must be made through a National Judicial Commission and they must be made accountable and punishable. Pandhe also called on the judiciary to become pro-people.

West Bengal assembly speaker Hashim Abdul Halim in his brief speech said it was wrong that while two important arms of democracy – legislature and executive – are accountable to the people through various mechanisms, the third part, the judiciary is totally not accountable. He underlined that in a democracy the right to criticise was a basic right but judiciary prevents even that by invoking the contempt of court threat. He felt that time has now come for changing this law of contempt. Halim was of the opinion that the media also was refraining from putting the judiciary under as much scrutiny as it does on legislature and executive. Referring to the point made by Arundhati Roy that efforts are on to ring in corporate judiciary, Halim said it must be noted that certain foreign countries were interested in having a certain judicial system which would serve their interests. He referred to the ongoing “democratisation” efforts in Iraq by the US.

Justice Rajinder Sachhar called for building up pressure for setting up of a National Judicial Commission, which must be empowered to take action against erring judges. He also called for greater transparency in judiciary. Shanti Bhushan said that judiciary used Article 21 of the Constitution was used to expand the scope of its intervention.