Role of Citizen in Judicial Process: Ideals of Democracy and How the Indian Judiciary Is Becoming More Citizen Centric.

 Vanshika Rao (19LLB085)

Abstract

India is a democratic republic with a constitution that enshrines a wide array of rights and freedoms, making the country, in fact, one of the biggest running democracies of the world. In its preamble, the constitution directs itself on the values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.

The constitution or the Law of the Land is the guiding body of the governmental works and functions. With the coming into force of the Constitution in 1950 a new chapter in the life of the Indian Judiciary opened itself where it became the beacon of hope and ultimate power for the citizens to safeguard their liberties and rights in India. However, after 75 year of independence and a wide array of landmark decisions and opinions of various courts and justices, a question arises as to the accessibility of law and their actual relationship with the citizens.

This essay discusses the judicial system of the country in light of the democratic constitutional ideals. It further goes on to cover the present state of the judiciary, and how the citizens perceive the law and the courts in their day to day lives. Also, it finally talks about how the judicial process should become more citizen centric and keeping in mind the evolving society around it.

 

The Constitution of India is the largest constitution of the world. It provides three main organs upon which the democracy functions. These three organs include (a) Legislature: the law-making body; (b) executive: the enforcement of the law; and (c) Judiciary: protect rule of law and ensure supremacy of law.

The supreme power of making decisions based on the rule of law is given to the judiciary. The courts in India neither are nor controlled by the government and they do not represent any political authority . It also safeguards and promotes the peace, cordiality and balance between different organs of the government. The judiciary generally performs many functions in constitutional democracies, some of them include:

 maintaining the balance between the various organs of the government or between center and the states.

 protecting the fundamental rights of the citizens.

 applying and interpreting the laws according to the will and intentions of the legislating bodies creating them.

 to check and balance the legislative or executive actions of the government.

 under article 32 and 226 the supreme court and the high court respectively has the power to issue writs or orders for achieving the objectives of those articles.

 PILs help judiciary in holding the government accountable to their actions and duties towards the citizens.

Judicial Process and citizens

Everything that a judge does in the process of delivery of justice is called Judicial Process. It basically discusses the concept of what law is to what the law ought to be. Despite the enormous praise earned by citizens of the country for its landmark and progressive judgements, even today, only those with resources hope to get ordinary justice. Crores of cases are presently pending in various courts where citizens have little hope of getting justice in their lifetime.

"In a democracy, the court belongs not to the lawyer but to the citizen" - Jerome Frank

In a recent speech at a national seminar organised by the Armed Forces Tribunal Principal Bench Bar Association, minister Rajnath Singh talked about the legal community and justice dispensation system of the country. He stated that the lawyer community is a major factor in people reposing faith in the judiciary. Be that as it may, the citizens of our country still feel a certain distance from approaching and understanding the judicial process. A common person going on about their day to day activities might still not be familiar with things as basic as their fundamental rights and duties, let alone the elaborate and intricate systems of PILs and litigations for their enforcement. They still feel hesitant in approaching the black coats that drive these litigations. Even three-quarters of a century after independence and over two decades after the birth of the internet, the Indian state is still struggling to make available all Indian laws its citizens in languages they can understand. This is no simple task in a democracy of a billion-plus people speaking 121 languages. Although with the advancements in internet and communication technology, this humongous goal once considered impossible, now seems within reach.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana in a recent event talked about the importance of constitution in the life of every citizen of the country. He said that a constitutional republic shall only thrive when its citizens are aware of their rights and duties under the Constitution. However, the knowledge of this is only limited to a very small section of the population. It is the responsibility of this small segment to make law and legal systems accessible and more importantly, easily understandable to the majority of the population. Law is an instrument for social change and progression in society. In his speech, the judge urged the law students and lawyers to be the beacon of social justice, become the voice of the voiceless and bridge the gaps in a world of rising inequities. In another recent event on the occasion of 76th Independence Day, CJI Ramana in an address talked about how the courts and judiciary breathe life into the statues of law. People are confident that they will get relief and justice from the judiciary. It gives them the strength to pursue any dispute arising in their day to day lives. They know that when things go wrong, the judiciary will stand by them. The Indian Supreme Court is the guardian of the Constitution in the world’s largest democracy,” he said. However on that note, we also have to look at the other aspect of this issue, where the people are afraid of pursuing litigation due to numerous reasons.

One of these problems is the courts in India burdened with a numerous pending cases and new cases being fed into the system every day. There are a plethora of problems that citizens face while trying to access these documents or while conversing with courts regarding case proceedings. Citizens face these problems mostly because of manual processes involved at all levels, like- manual paper-based case filing & proceedings, lack of case status tracking mechanism creates high dependency on lawyers and other middlemen, linking of old cases and cases from lower courts, etc. Lack of proper infrastructural support and the low judge to citizen ratio is becoming the main reason behind this issue of ever increasing distance between citizens and judicial processes and thus delayed justice. To address these challenges, E-courts is the initiative that looks optimistic at its best. With the advancement of technology in the last decade, courts are faced with an added responsibility of not just managing cases, but also analyzing digital evidence and witness testimony. Cases nowadays involve mobile data, email accounts, social media content, bank account transactions, and audio and video footage. Proper storage and archiving of this content with quick retrieval when needed calls for an Enterprise Content Management System. Adopting these digital and automation technologies would establish a system where all the courts in a state and in India would be connected to each other and with other organizations . Though these systems of E- courts ensure necessary knowledge and information is at the citizens’ fingertips and thus speedy judiciary processes, proper implementation is absolutely essential for it to be a success.

The principle of being citizen centric means placing citizens at the centre, achieved by addressing the immediate concerns of citizens i.e. transparency, efficiency, stability, etc.

Karuna Nundy, a Supreme Court advocate, in a recent interview said that, “elections every five years and universal suffrage does not make a democracy. While we are a democracy still, there has been an erosion of democratic values over time. ” The citizens are considered to be at the centre of any democracy. Our constitution prides itself on being called ‘of the people, for the people and by the people’. However, seeing the present gaps between the citizens and judiciary, it begs the question, is the judicial system which is considered to be the saviour of the public in enforcing and protecting them, really living up to its name.

Creation of institutions such as Lokayuktas, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Women’s Commission (NWC), National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission etc.

Conclusion

Human Rights has always been regarded as the backbone of every democratic set up . India has made the sincerest efforts for the protection and promotion of human rights in the world over. Supreme Court, High court played an important role in protecting and safeguarding the human rights in India, sometimes through the wide interpretation of provision to increase the extent and ambit of rights provided to its citizens.

The Supreme Court being the principle guardian of the constitution maintains a check and balance on the other two organs of the government. The courts are frequently called upon to assess the validity of statutes passed by legislative majority. Judicial activism of the Supreme Court has helped in enforcing the rights and interests of the citizens and also in keeping the other branches of the government within their constitutional boundaries, the judiciary should constantly remind itself that the need of the hour is the supremacy of the constitution and not the supremacy of the judiciary.

Involvement of citizens in these judicial processes of the courts is very essential for upholding the very ideals if democracy. Information and knowledge are the keys to making a society progressive and educated. These help to steer the community towards the right direction in social welfare and encourage public policy. Availability of law, and more importantly the understanding of laws and constitution is absolutely essential of the citizens. The citizens of the country should be confident about their judicial systems to maintain the supremacy and legitimacy that the courts have garnered over due course of time.