Context: Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu has recently said that inordinate delay, cost of legal processes and inaccessibility are impeding the effective delivery of justice to the common man. In this episode we will discuss and analyse how can judicial system be made more accessible, affordable and understanble for the common man.
Key Challenges

• Underscoring the importance of timely justice, he suggested we find systemic solutions to solve the nearly 4 crore pending cases in the country, with most cases stuck in the lower courts, where around 87 percent of the total pending cases lie.  

Rising Pendency

• Between 2006 and 2018 (up to April), there has been an 8.6% rise in the pendency of cases across all courts.
• Pendency before Supreme Court increased by 36%, High Courts by 17%, and subordinate courts by 7%.
• Low Disposal Rate: The disposal rate has stayed between 55% to 59% in the Supreme Court, at 28% in the High Courts, and at 40% in the subordinate courts.

Reason for state of poor legal justice in India:

• Corruption: Like any other institution of the Government, the Indian judicial system is equally corrupted. There is no system of accountability. There is no provision for registering an FIR against a judge taking bribes without taking the permission of the Chief Justice of India.
• Backlog of pending cases: India’s legal system has the largest backlog of pending cases in the world as many as 30 million pending cases. This number is continuously increasing and this itself shows the inadequacy of the legal system. It has always been discussed to increase the number of judges, creating more courts, but implementation is always late or inadequate. The victims are the ordinary or poor people, while the rich can afford expensive lawyers and change the course of dispensation of the law in their favour.
• Lack of transparency: Another problem facing the Indian judicial system is the lack of transparency. It is seen that the Right to Information (RTI) Act is totally out of the ambit of the legal system. Thus, in the functioning of the judiciary, the substantial issues like the quality of justice and accountability are not known properly.
• Hardships of the undertrials: In Indian jails, most of the prisoners are undertrials, who are confined to the jails till their case comes to a definite conclusion. In most of the cases, they end up spending more time in the jail than the actual term that might have had been awarded to them had the case been decided on time and, assuming, against them. Further, the expenses and pain and agony of defending themselves in courts is worse than serving the actual sentence. Undertrials are not guilty till convicted.
• No interaction with the society: It is very essential that the judiciary of any country should be an integral part of the society and its interactions with the society must be made regular and relevant. In India, the Indian judicial system has no connection with the society, something which it had inherited from the British judicial set-up. Even today, the law officers have not been able to come closer to the ground to meet the common people.
• Social inequalities: Social inequality in relation to the backward classes and communities which are treated as untouchable delays justice to them. While rich is able to access and mould the legal and judicial system in their favour, poor suffer at the hands of corrupt and inefficient system. The poor also have no access to legal assistance.
• Insensitive Police: Even the police officials are not sensitive towards poor and weak. Their indifferent and insensitive behaviour towards marginalised and women lead to fear of reporting the crime to police which lead to gross injustice.
• Poor implementation of laws: Laws for the legal justice are not effectively enforced by law enforcement agencies. This lead to gross legal injustice and prevent marginalised and weak from enjoying legal rights available to them.
• Lack of awareness of law and illiteracy: People in India are not aware of laws availability for protection of their rights. Illiteracy and poor awareness often lead to their exploitation and lack of getting legal justice available through various laws.

Solution

• “the poorest man in want of justice” must be the prime motivator of legal practitioners in their thoughts and actions.
• Underscoring the importance of restoring public confidence in the system, disposal of criminal cases related to public functionaries in a speedy, dispassionate, objective manner. For this purpose, special courts can be constituted to exclusively deal with criminal cases involving public servants and elected representatives, the Vice President suggested.
• He also proposed separate fast track courts for resolving electoral cases and to look into electoral malpractices.
• He also opined that defection cases in legislatures should be dealt with expeditiously in a time bound manner.
• Calling judiciary a ‘key pillar of our polity’, Shri Naidu said it is our duty to ensure that we collectively improve the processes and achieve higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency. We need to re-invent, revamp and redefine the way we administer justice and enforce the rule of law.
• Innovations like Lok Adalats and mobile courts be leveraged wherever feasible to improve access. Along with this, streamlining free legal aid mechanisms and lawyers offering ‘pro-bono’ services for poor litigantscan help in reducing out-of-pocket expenditure for the underprivileged.
• Alternative dispute redress mechanisms like Lok Adalats may have to be fully leveraged for speedy disposal of cases because that appointments to the courts must also be expedited and vacancies must be filled in a time-bound manner. This will bring great productivity gains especially in the lower courts, he observed.

Measures which when implemented can transform the way India seeks and delivers justice:

• Understanding the law is the first step to oppose all forms of injustice. Hence, making laws accessible and comprehensible for legal empowerment, so citizens know when their rights are being violated and what their legal options are. For this role of media is important to further the awareness.
• Ensuring high-quality, affordable legal aid, so individuals have a strong chance at a fair trial, regardless of economic or social background. Thus, investing in the provision of high-quality legal aid not only benefits economically weaker litigants, it also provides significant economic benefits. One way to achieve this is by institutionalising the spirit of ‘pro-bono’ legal aid.
• Streamlining case management processes in courts, so justice delivery can be swift, efficient and cost-effective. The courts need to streamline their case management processes with technology or external expertise that will help reduce pendency.
• Supporting and driving accountability in police and prison systems, so these agencies uphold the law and legal procedures with sensitivity to the rights of victims, convicts, undertrials and the most disempowered.
• A critical step to improving access to justice would be the immediate implementation of the police reforms across India that would not only ensure that the police are accountable, efficient and effective but also change this perception.
• Non-profit organizations across the country have taken on the responsibility to develop innovative and impactful strategies to not only support and strengthen existing systems but also to make the law work for the people.
• Funders, academics and government agencies need to support impactful solutions which builds, documents, improves and scales these efforts rather than reinvent the wheel. While foreign funding has been plenty, India’s justice system is best strengthened by investment from Indian philanthropy and corporates, and in general by giving citizens of the country a chance to strengthen their own democracy and be part of the nation building process.

We need to come together to improve the justice systems. Standalone decisions and strategies won’t work any longer. The police need to collaborate with the people to develop a trust-based, solution-oriented relationship. Non-profits should collaborate to achieve the shared goals