Union Law Minister said in Mysore today that certain legislations to reform the judicial system will be brought before the next Monsoon Session of the Parliament.
Addressing the Southern States Regional Conference on ‘Role of advocates in democracy and protection of human rights’ organised by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, he said he was working on a bill to make justice a part of the rights of the people and the first draft on the ‘Right to Justice’ Bill was ready.
According to the National Law Commission report only 4 per cent of the people had access to justice and the rest were denied this right. This needed to be rectified by making justice a right of all. There should be no injustice to any citizen in the country by way of denial of justice, he said.
Efforts were also on to see that no case will be pending for more than three years in the courts, within the next six months. The measure would liberate the courts from the huge number of pendency cases, he said adding, “We are working on several other reform measures.” The ministry was also spending Rs 500 crore on mobile courts. “The judiciary is anxious about it, but not the lawyers,” he rued.
He said the ministry was also working on a National Judiciary Service on a par with services like IAS and IPS. It will be a new cadre of judicial officers. A move was also on to create a cadre of legal services of personnel like draughtsmen and others.
The minister said he had already worked out on making appointment of Judges transparent. “We are coming out with a most transparent system where merit will be dominant in appointment of Judges,” he said.
“No where in the world Judges appoint Judges. They appoint themselves to judicial posts. Still we are tolerating,” he said adding that the way the things are happening they could take over legislature and executive and even the Parliament functioning. Unfortunately, the system is like that,” Moily said and added changes needed to be brought about.
Similarly, the Law Minister said Public Interest Litigation (PIL) had become a ‘big business’ “Holding judiciary to ransom has to end. Therefore, fixing parameters for PIL has become a necessity.” Even rule of law has suffered in the country, instead of being endured. “We have to reestablish rule of law. We will take up this cause,” he said.
Saying India was suffering from a ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, he said even the legal fraternity was no exception to this.
Obviously keeping in mind the happenings in Karnataka, he said radical measures were needed to combat corruption. “We should not allow a situation like Egypt or Lebanon to develop. Our Parliamentary system is strong enough to overcome such a scenario. So, we are introducing radical measures to combat corruption,” he said, adding, some of these would come up in the Monsoon Session.
