Observer Research Foundation on August 21 organised a day-long workshop on ¿ Access to Justice in India¿ particularly for the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. Drawing the attention of the participants, ORF Chairman R.K.Mishra, in his welcome address said there was no dearth of studies and recommendations on improving the justice delivery system in the country but the will to implement them was what was missing
< class="greytext1" style="font-size: small;">Observer Research Foundation on August 21 organised a day-long workshop on " Access to Justice in India" particularly for the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. Drawing the attention of the participants, ORF Chairman R.K.Mishra, in his welcome address said there was no dearth of studies and recommendations on improving the justice delivery system in the country but the will to implement them was what was missing. The irony, he said, was that in 60% of the cases, the government was the litigant. Sharing his own experiences in dealing with the criminal justice system, he said that the poor have little faith in the criminal justice system and they often view the state as an enemy.
Fali Nariman, eminent lawyer, in his inaugural address, said too much has been spoken and written on access of justice to the poor and too little has been done to ensure easy justice to them. Does the fault lie with the law or with those who run it? Expressing his deep anguish, he said we have floundered mainly because we have failed to implement the Directive Principles which were fundamental to governance. Commenting on issue of free legal aid for the poor, Mr. Nariman said that Article 39A which was instituted for free legal aid during the Emergency should have been made a fundamental right. There was little hope that the executive and legislature would muster enough collective will to improve the system in the country. All we require, he said, was civil society initiatives such as encouraging law students to represent litigants in small cases. We need creative judges and judges who could light up new and difficult paths which others could follow. Justice M.J.Rao, Chairman, Law Commission of India, speaking on the occasion, said that removing injustice was the key to restore people's faith of criminal justice system. He contented that while most often we talk about the backlog of cases while ignoring the extent of disposal. He suggested appointment of more judges--adhoc judges, adopting compensatory system, plea bargain trial and most importantly allocating more resources to Free Legal Boards to improve access to justice. He suggested referring to the South African constitution on free legal aid for a solution. Among other eminent speakers who expressed their concerns on present justice delivery system were Lalit Bhasin, Justce S.D.Dave, Justice Manju Goel, S.K.Dholakia, Kirti Singh Narula, Maj. Inderjit Dhillon and T.K.Viswanathan. The speakers were unanimous that the provision of alternative dispute resolution need to be considered and the whole concept of free legal aid to the poor including women, aged, mentally disturbed, children need to taken seriously. Prepared by Mr Niranjan Sahoo, Research Fellow, ORF (If you are interested in knowing more about the workshop, please contact Mr Sahoo at [email protected])The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
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