Online seminar on Judicial Reforms: Judges should not waste time in Committees, says Justice (retd) Madan B Lokur

Judges should not waste time in Committees, said former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Madan B Lokur as he emphasized that Judges should only look at judicial wok.

. Justice Lokur said that Committees constituted for various purposes by the Courts should be manned by the Court’s administrative staff and not the Judges.

. Justice Lokur was speaking on the theme ‘Judicial Reforms: Way Forward’ at an online seminar organized by the Beyond Law CLC and Punjab University, Chandigarh. His fellow speaker was Punjab & Haryana High Court Judge, Dr Justice S Muralidhar .

. During his address, Justice Lokur suggested "marshalling our resources" for the purpose of judicial reforms.

. What are our existing resources and how do we add or modify them?, he asked.

. He suggested that there was a need to cash the vibrant Lok Adalat system.

. It is not functioning as it should have. It has not been established everywhere, Justice Lokur remarked.

. He called for effective legal aid and advice in order to avoid, to the extent possible, coming to courts.

. Justice Lokur advocated institutionalizing arbitration laws and procedure and promoting meditation as an alternate dispute resolution mechanism.

. He also raised concerns on vacancy and consequent non-functioning of certain Tribunals and Commission. By and large, doing a good job , Justice Lokur nonetheless said.

. Justice Lokur further spoke at length on incorporating technology in judiciary.

. Technology may be adopted for case management, paperless courts, virtual courts, audio recording case proceedings etc, Justice Lokur suggested.

. He called for updating procedural laws to incorporate technology and placing more reliance on detailed written submissions from parties in place of lengthy oral arguments.

. Justice Lokur took the opportunity to remind the audience that social distancing was here to stay due to COVID-19.

. There is a limit to how much judges can work. Once lockdown is lifted, huge number of cases will be filed.. Pendency is going to keep piling up , he apprehended.

. Justice S Muralidhar began his address by revisiting the judicial reforms that were introduced in as far as 1793.

. He illustrated how reforms in Judiciary were related to economic development also as he spoke on the introduction of Insolvency, arbitration laws and establishment of commercial courts.

. Relying on a 2018 report, Justice Muralidhar listed certain "court values" for better functioning of judiciary. These are equality, fairness, impartiality, independence, competence, integrity, transparency, accessibility, timeliness and certainty.

. He further added that there are certain "court measures" that could evaluate the functioning of a court. These included case clearance rate, on-time case processing, court file integrity, case backlog, employee engagement, compliance with court orders, cost of a case.

. Justice Muralidhar emphasized on the existence of non-formal Judicial system and lack of dialogue between non-formal and formal Judicial system.

. The predominant question that we should ask when we talk about judicial reforms is how are vulnerable groups being treated, he said.

. Justice Muralidhar said that it was imperative that lawyers be taken on board while implementing any judicial reforms.

. He also suggested that there was a need to look at new tools that could be adopted like online courts.

Technology will be an additional tool, cannot replace courts completely , Justice Muralidhar clarified.

. Justice Muralidhar also called for evaluating the performance of Judicial academies in the country.

. During the question & answer session, Justice Muralidhar mooted imparting English language and legal language training to judges in subordinate judiciary in response to a query on quality of judges and judments in courts of first instance.

. In response to a question of live-streaming case proceedings, Justice Lokur said,

" Should it be live streamed or should it be deferred? Who will have access? Implementation of live streaming of cases is a challenge . But if it can be done, there is nothing like it. "

. The Judges also answered queries on implementation of e-filing and shared their experience at the Dehi High Court.

. The online Seminar ended after the Q&A Session.

Online seminar on Judicial Reforms: Judges should not waste time in Committees, says Justice (retd) Madan B Lokur

Aditi Singh

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