People's Democracy

 AILU to Protect Right To Strike And Democratic Rights

Har Dev Singh

THE National Council of All-India Lawyers’ Union (AILU), in its meeting at Kolkata on September 27, took some far-reaching decisions concerning the legal profession and the state of democratic rights in the country. Thirteen states were represented by 65 delegates who participated in the deliberations.

Taking note of the crisis in the judiciary and near-collapse of the judicial system, as witnessed in a spate of scams implicating a number of High Court judges in cases of corruption, favoritism, sex and political scandals, it was decided that campaigning for accountability needs to be accentuated. At the root is the method of appointment of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts and an effective disciplining procedure to deal with errant judges. The method of appointment of judges by the executive, executive-judiciary and judiciary has failed and so has failed the impeachment procedure in article 124 of the constitution to deal with errant judges. Whereas each of the methods of appointment of judges proved futile, the impeachment provision in article 124 of the constitution demonstrably proved ineffective, as was seen in the case of Supreme Court judge V Ramaswami.

The Committee on Judicial Accountability (COJA) finalised a bill of amendment of the constitution to provide for the constitution of an independent full-time National Judicial Commission comprising representatives of judiciary, legislature, executive, the bar and the people to be entrusted with appointment and disciplinary powers in respect of higher judiciary. The commission will have its own investigative machinery and its functioning will be transparent and open to public gaze. Because of vested interests, the bill has not been enacted into law.

The situation has assumed alarming dimension with the arrest of Justice Shamit Mukerjee of Delhi High Court. The NDA government hastily came forward with a bill to constitute a National Judicial Commission comprising three judges of Supreme Court, the law minister and a nominee of the prime minister to suggest names for appointment as judges. The bill is not only an eye-wash but a total sham that would make things even worse as was pointed out by retired justice P B Sawant of Supreme Court in the “Convention on Corruption in Judiciary and Judicial Accountability” held on August 2, 2003 at New Delhi.

The National Council resolved to strengthen the campaign for enactment of the COJA bill.

The council also resolved that the need of judicial reforms that would bring in its sweep matters such as abrogation of retrograde laws curtailing democratic rights and liberties introduced as a follow up of the agenda of globalisation and so called liberalisation has assumed utmost urgency. The higher judiciary has arrogated to itself more and more arbitrary powers to make pronouncements that run counter to the sprit and mandate of the constitution. Most of these pronouncements are in the interests of exploiting classes and helpful to the communal oppression of minorities and downtrodden sections of the society. In effect the judiciary by its pronouncements performs the jobs, which the executive would not be able to do. This has brought in the forefront the need of widening the scope of judicial reforms to make judiciary accountable to the sprit and mandate of the constitution.

The task has emerged foremost to take up judicial reforms by involving sections of people who are really affected, i.e., the consumers of justice. The twin task that has emerged is to fight out corruption in judiciary by making system of appointment of judges independent of judiciary, executive or politicians and provide for disciplining the errant judges by an effective and transparent method such as appointment of a full time independent National Judicial Commission. Further, the campaign must be launched to make judiciary accountable to the spirit and mandate of the constitution, and seek reversal of retrograde and unconstitutional pronouncements. The consumers of justice must rally around and publicly campaign to this end.

This was experimented successfully by “Convention on Corruption in Judiciary and Judicial Accountability” on August 2, sponsored by 22 organisations. It was resolved that in today’s context it is the foremost task for the AILU along with other representative organisations to promote and strengthen.

The National Council then considered the Supreme Court pronouncement of two judges on the right to strike.

It was noted that the observations in this case did not arise from matters in issue and as such, being a judicial aberration, are not binding.

The view of two judges in T K Rangarajan’s case that the right to strike is neither a fundamental, statutory nor moral/equitable, being obiter, is not binding. The council resolved to carry out widespread campaign against these observations.

Another matter concerns the rights and liberties of the people, and the government’s move to enact provisions to give effect to report of the Mallimath committee. In the field of criminal law, police is sought to be empowered to record signed statement of an accused and witnesses, extending police remand to 30 days and doing away with requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt for conviction to be recorded. As it is, the police already enjoys arbitrary and capricious power to pervert justice in favour of the rich and the mighty with political and social connections. Recommendations sought to be introduced will make the system highly prejudicial and hazardous to the working and down trodden people, besides the political opponents of the regime.

It was resolved to campaign against the moves to introduce retrograde amendments suggested by the Mallimath committee.

The council decided to launch a countrywide campaign to implement the above decisions towards preparations for the forthcoming eighth VIII biennial conference at Jallandhar on April 2-4, 2004 in which delegates from all over the country will deliberate on important matters.

A larger contingent of fraternal delegates from the neighboring and other countries will also participate in the eighth biennial conference.

The deliberations of the forthcoming conference are expected to open a new chapter in the life of AILU which will by then complete over two decades.