Creating a law-abiding society - Part 1

Creating a law-abiding society - Part 1

Recently, I had posted my thoughts on the need for judicial reforms in India. (If you missed it, you can read it here:

• The Anarchy that's India

A thorough and complete overhaul of the legal system, the laws of the land, addressing the adequacy of the number of courts, judges, cops, etc. would take a long time.

In the meantime, we can introduce a whole lot of small/minor changes which will have a quick yet significant positive impact on the society.

I plan to come up with a series of suggestions in this endeavour, in what I hope to be a series of posts.

Here are the first few suggestions:

• Create a course called "Essentials of Law" and make it mandatory at a few different levels:
  
  
  • "Introduction to Basics of Law" - For Class VI students. This should cover the need for law, importance of having a rule of law, the need for respect for law and a few basic critical aspects of laws.
    
    
  • "Exposure to Law - Growing beyond Adolescence" - For Class XI students - This should cover basics of criminal law, basics of commercial law, basics of civil laws, Legal duties and rights of a citizen.
    
    
  • "Getting ready for Responsibilities - Laws for being a good citizen" - For final year college students. This should include a more advanced and updated version of the above two courses.

• Introduce a "Double or Half" system to de-clutter the higher courts. Today, the high courts and supreme court are having a plethora of cases and the numbers are overwhelming. We must identify some simple and elegant method of de-cluttering the higher courts. Here are a few suggestions:
  
  
  • When person (whether an individual or an organisation) gets a judgement at the first court in which the case was originally filed, the person who feels that he is the aggrieved party goes in for an appeal. This is perfectly legal, but results in cluttering the higher courts with too many cases. Hence, a system should be introduced where the punishment in the form of imprisonment or a monetary penalty or both WILL be at least doubled in case the earlier judgement is upheld and will be at least halved if the earlier judgement is overruled.
    
    
  • For instance, in case the initial judgement had called for the convicted person to be imprisoned for 4 years and levied a fine of Rs. 100,000/=, in the first appeal, if the earlier judgement is held to be valid, the minimum punishment should be 8 years of imprisonment and a fine of a minimum of Rs. 200,000/=. if the earlier judgement is overturned, the maximum punishment levied for the originally convicted person should be 2 years imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rs. 50,000/=.
    
    
  • This process will ensure that both parties involved in the litigation will think a hundred times before going in appeal.
    
    
  • While enacting the necessary modification in laws to implement the above suggestion, the constitution should be amended so as to enable and empower the judges hearing the case in every appeal to go beyond the maximum punishment applicable in the relevant acts as well as to go below the minimum punishment applicable in the relevant acts.
    
    
  • Let me explain this with an example - Suppose the maximum punishment for a specific crime is 10 years imprisonment; Further suppose that the original judgement in the first trial court had been 8 years. If the conviction is upheld in appeal, the judge should have the flexibility to go beyond the maximum punishment of 10 years, and should even be allowed to prescribe an imprisonment of upto 16 years.

I invite suggestions from all of you to make the judicial system quick, responsive and effective in providing justice.

Regards,

N