P. A. Chacko
The Legal Services Authorities Act was enacted in India in 1987. The National Legal Services day, NALSA, was set up in 1995.
The overall aim was to provide complete and free legal aid to the disadvantaged and marginalised socio-economic groups. Further, to clear the cobwebbed legal corridors stacked with backlogs of cases which enjoy an unclaimed holiday. And, through Lok Adalats, to open the law courts to public spaces where common people can reach out for legal justice.
All started with good intent. However, there are some pertinent questions the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislative fraternity ought to answer.
- What has come to the PIL process initiated by conscientious judges like Krishna Iyer and Bhagwati? Even a post card or a newspaper item was enough as a PIL to set in motion the process of justice for common people who cannot reach out to the holy precincts of the courts. The criterion of ‘locus standi’ was done away with.
But, with Krishna Iyer and Bhagwati gone to their eternal reward, PIL was watered done and it came to a stage where it was given a solemn burial by the judges who ruled that even social activists standing for the poor by activating PILs are a nuisance and need to be silenced and put behind bars. Remember Teesta Setalvad, social activist and Secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, who stood with the victims of the Gujarat riot victims’ families, and was arrested and jailed for pursuing a PIL.
- As long as legal services are run like business services and plied by lawyers who charge unrestricted amount of charges, can legal justice reach out to the poor?
- Do we not need men and women as judges and magistrates who are ruled by a clear conscience and sense of judicial justice and not swayed by the executive wind or political gale?
- Should not Government interference in appointment of judges be questioned so that independence of the judiciary can be kept intact?
There is much to be desired in the functioning of even free legal aid. One wonders how many lawyers will willingly undertake Government’s free legal aid project. In most cases they are unhappy with the fixed rates approved by the Government as their fees.
Legal justice is still a far-fetched reality for the poor and marginalised. Most of them have no legal literacy. That is an advantage for lawyers to fleece them. Social organisations and educational institutions should come forward to strengthen people with basic knowledge of law and legal literacy.