Introduction
- The Indian Judiciary plays an increasingly important role in the life and the governance of this country..
- Recently CJI as the master of the roster with the sole prerogative to determine which Bench of judges gets to hear which cases comes under question.
- Four senior judges of supreme court came in public and organized a press conference to tell that everything is not going fine inside the judiciary, they were mainly pointing on the CJI that he is allocating case to benches in arbitrary manner
Why judicial reforms and accountability
- For ensuring speedy justice: Speedy justice is not only our fundamental right but also a most important requirement for maintaining the rule of law and delivering good governance.
- Opaque internal structure founded on a combination of unquestioning trust in the office of CJI along with instinctive distaste for any interference by parliament or executive in judicial functioning
- Judiciary as guardian of our constitution: Judicial accountability is more important, as decline of values in judiciary is far more dangerous than in any other organ of the government as judiciary has to act as the guardian of our constitution.
- Virtually absolute power with court: the courts in India enjoy virtually absolute power than any Court in the world. So accountability is must.
- To clear the backlog cases – more than 3 core cases are pending in judiciary there clearance needs holistic reform in the judiciary.
- In its absence, the judicial system ends up serving the interests of the corrupt and the law-breakers.
- Judicial Accountability
- Accountability is the core principle of any democracy. In our democracy it is only the executive and the legislature which is held accountable and not the judiciary. Judges are also public officials and hence should be made accountable.
- It is essential to ensure accountability of the judges to ensure public confidence in the judicial system. Accountability will help in reducing incidences of nepotism by the judges. Judges being given political posts like in “Justice Sathasivam” case who became the governor of Kerala post retirement raises questions about political influence affecting the judiciary. Moreover, judgements have huge ramifications in the society hence to make judgements more prudent; judges need to be made accountable.
- Impeachment is a legal procedure for the removal of judges on grounds of ”proven misbehavior or misconduct’ but it is far too lengthy and cumbersome procedure. No judge has ever been impeached till date stands testimony to the fact that judiciary enjoys undisputed power. Even in cases like that of Judge Veeraswami, Judge Ramaswami where this procedure was initiated, were not finally completed.
- Independence of the judiciary means independence from the executive and legislative and not lack of accountability. The yardstick or parameters to judge accountability and proper procedures for their performance assessment needs to evolve (though debated, discussed) so as not to denigrate judges or do character assassination but to ensure objective, fair and just accountability of judiciary.
- Proven methods like a system of evaluation by trained court observers who make unscheduled court visits to evaluate Judges on their knowledge of law, integrity, communication skills, and impartiality may be experimented.