[Collegium system] Judges spending more time on judges appointments than deciding cases: Law Minister Kiren Rijiju

Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday said that the politics within the judiciary when it comes to appointment of judges is not visible to the common man, and that the Collegium system is too opaque. .He said that judges of Constitutional courts are spending more time on deciding appointment of judges than in hearing and deciding cases.Rijiju said that the people of the country are not happy with the Collegium system, by which judges are appointed to the judiciary. If we were to follow the spirit of the Constitution, appointing judges would be the work of the Central government, he said."Nowhere in the world, a judge appoints another judge...Judges are spending more time deciding on appointments than deciding cases...the consultation process [for appointing judges] is very intense. People do not see the politics that is happening inside the judiciary while appointing judges...the process is very opaque..." he added. The Law Minister was speaking at an event held in Ahmedabad called Sabarmati Samvad, organised by weekly magazine Panchajanya, which is published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)..Speaking on the subject of judicial activism, he said that when the judiciary passes an order outside of its scope such as directing the executive to do something, the judge has no idea of the practical difficulties and financial constraints the executive has to face while adhering to the order. "A country has its own abilities...every organ should focus on duties they are vested with otherwise we would also be blamed that we are doing executive activism," Rijiju said..Sharing his thoughts on oral observations made by judges, the Law Minister said that these observations represent what a judge thinks of a particular issue and the same is many a time opposed by the society."Whenever, I have conversations with judiciary or when I speak to judges, I always tell them in a cordial manner that whatever they wish to say, they must express it through their orders rather than making oral observations."He thus called for an in-house mechanism to be put in place by the judiciary to regulate the oral observations made by judges during hearings..On the topic of judiciary bashing on social media, he said,"The Chief Justice of India wrote a letter to me on judges being attacked on social media, and asked me to take strict action against those making such comments. I have deliberately not replied to the letter, because I have to take action once I reply, and have to think of the consequences of such action...".Rijiju went on to note that whenever a judge renders a verdict which is not "society friendly", then unlike Parliament, there is no mechanism to check the same..Finally, he also said that in the last eight years, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government has not done anything to cause harm to judiciary, or challenged or undermined its authority in any manner."But if we want to correct anything, the sentiments of the country must be attached to that correction as a country requires the support of its people...when we had introduced NJAC, that was challenged in Supreme Court and struck down. We could have taken action in furtherance of that but we did not..." he said..[Watch full video here]

[Collegium system] Judges spending more time on judges appointments than deciding cases: Law Minister Kiren Rijiju

Ratna Singh

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