 "Ex-CJI Chandrachud calls for discussions on All India Judicial Service, seeks simplified laws & verdicts")
Former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has called for discussions for a nationwide All India Judicial Service and simplification of a judicial system as part of judicial reforms.
In a conversation with Zakka Jacob and Ananya Bhatnagar at News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Chandrachud said that laws and verdicts are meant for the people and therefore they should be written in a way that people may understand them.
From time to time, demands pop of amendments to the way judges are appointed at various levels in the country to ensure more transparency, inclusivity, and merit. Currently, judges at the district-level are appointed by states through competitive examinations and judges of high courts and the Supreme Court are appointed via the collegium mechanism.
Chandrachud said that judicial reforms “have to begin at the very base of the pyramid, mainly the district judiciary, because that’s where common people come into contact with the judicial system”.
Chandrachud said, “A young couple which has a matrimonial dispute, where do they go to? They don’t go to the high court or the Supreme Court. As a matter first instance, they go to family court. Now, you see that in the family courts, there is a huge backlog of cases. For the reason that we have used the adversarial system for resolving family disputes, which is so completely incorrect, family disputes have to be resolved by applying non-adversarial systems because you have a child. There are issues of child custody and child welfare, so we have to adopt a more non-adversarial system at the level of district judiciary.”
‘There should be deliberations on All India Judicial Service’
At a time when commentators are pressing for amendments, or at least the exploration of alternatives, to the way judges are appointed, Chandrachud said that there should be some deliberations on nationwide competitive examination-based recruitment of judges.
However, Chandrachud called for such appointments for district-level and not at the levels of high court or the Supreme Court.
Chandrachud said, “Recruitment to the Indian district judiciary takes place in the states. It’s never at the national level. I’m a proponent of at least be some national deliberation taking place on should we have an All India Judicial Service in India.”
Impact Shorts
More ShortsChandrachud then went on to outline how such a system may work.
“We can at least have a national level examination and then allow for recruitment by the states on the basis of the merit list in the national examination, apply the reservation in relation to each state, whether for the STs, the SCs, or OBCs as the case may be,” said Chandrachud.
Reforms beyond judges’ appointment
The judicial reforms need to go beyond the appointment of judges and should cover the way law is written and used by litigants, according to Chandrachud.
The law needs to be accessible to people and while steps have been taken to make it more accessible, such as publishing summarised judgements in journals, carrying out judicial proceedings in languages other than English, and live-streaming court proceedings, much more can be done, said Chandrachud.
For one, Chandrachud said that laws and judgements should be written in a way that common people may understand them and the usage of Latin phrases may be avoided as that’s alien to most people. However, he admitted that it’s easier said than done as the spoken language is often very different from the language that’s used in the formal system.
Chandrachud said, “There is a disconnect between the spoken version of our regional languages and the official version of our regional languages. For instance, my mother tongue is Marathi and I’m very fluent in Hindi and I know several other Indian languages. Now, spoken Marathi or spokesn Hindi is very different from official Marathi or official Hindi. Now, how does a citizen understand official Marathi or official Hindi? Or for that matter official Tamil or Bangla? So we have to bridge this gap between the way laws are drafted in the official language and the laws as they should be understood in the language which citizens speak.”
It’s extremely difficult to be simple, but it’s very easy to be complex, said Chandrachud as he summed up the complexity of the challenge.
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