{"id":523,"date":"2020-12-18T18:04:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T18:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=523"},"modified":"2020-12-19T05:44:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T05:44:21","slug":"access-to-justice-judiciary-during-this-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/access-to-justice-judiciary-during-this-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Access to Justice: Judiciary During this Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fanan Rasheed<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sastra University, Thanjavur, Kerala<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dreadful pandemic named COVID-19 is a major global crisis not only in terms of the toll it has taken on human life, businesses, jobs, falling of economy, restriction in freedom of movement and associations but also due to denial of the basic right to justice promised by the constitution. It has resulted in a revolutionary and historical change in the mode of serving justice by law. The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined ways of living. New methods have been adopted in every field: be it, online classes, for schools and colleges or e-courts for hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In India, after complete lockdown got imposed nationwide on March 26, the Supreme Court decided to discontinue face to face court proceedings and take up only urgent cases that too virtually. There is no physical courtroom or any means of physical contact ensuring safety during covid times. All the lawyers, judge and litigants are to take part in proceedings through video conferencing facilities. The pleadings are filed digitally via e-filing centers. Across the country, since courts now take upon only urgent cases, it has resulted in the low disposal rates. This came as a blow to the otherwise underprivileged, poor, sensitive or somewhat invisible, neglected and inferior sections of the society who now felt outcast as they had mere knowledge on the usage and working of technology. Most advocates and litigants are unaware of and have no prior exposure to the use of such digital mediums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look briefly on how e-courts function: in such courts, the case files are digitalized as PDF and then converted into portfolios containing records of the cases. The Judge has been provided with a Wacom 24 or 27 high-resolution monitor with \u2018Stylus\u2019 which respond to the slightest touch, which allows the Judge to move across the portfolios of cases and write down personal notes as and then required simultaneously. The lawyers can present their cases through electronic gadgets like laptops, tablets etc., and if need be the lawyers can also display their screens. Advocates are forced to be brief about their presentation as digitalized mediums have specific time constraints. Litigants are given the privilege to attend and be part of court proceedings from the comfort of their homes without otherwise having to travel long distances to come to actual courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a survey: In Indian courts, there is a fall in case numbers also approximately 3.23 crore cases are pending, which includes 90 lakh civil cases and 2.32 crore criminal cases. Some significant problems associated with this new method of judicial proceedings are: It is accepted worldwide that hearings over video-conferencing are not even close to satisfactory. Connections are not always smooth and are often disrupted with frequent audio and video drops. There is a much higher chance of justice being denied as compared to physical court hearings. The income of advocates have significantly reduced, and a significant fraction of these individuals want the old system to be restored. While higher-level courts have functioned without much of a problem, most district courts have mostly remained closed for routine work. Not all lawyers possess resources like tablets and laptops with web-cameras, microphones and uninterrupted net connections. Many are not even aware of creating and uploading pdf documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For litigants, the situation is even worse. Even though an online system has come into play for the judiciary, most courts are close to a shutdown. Individuals in prison are denied bail; trials are at a standstill, petitions are kept pending. The wealthy and better off can afford and appoint influential and high profile lawyers for their cases, whereas ordinary litigants are less fortunate. Prashant Bhushan, the famous supreme court lawyer has argued that all of this has resulted in a lack of addressal of the fundamental rights of citizens like those in detention, the sick and poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been many instances of the saying- \u201cJustice delayed is justice denied\u201d <\/strong>like the migrant workers were left stranded without jobs, money or food after lockdown. They wished to return to their houses and reunite with their families. These labourers overcrowded train, bus stations and state borders. Police stopped them at state borders and put them in shelter homes upon order of the central government where number of people had to live in confined spaces devoid of social distancing. Also, the quality of the food provided was inferior, with many getting just one meal of uncooked food every day. A Rs 1.70 lakh crore package was given 36 hours after the lockdown, in response to the petitions about the same. The needs of the migrant labourers were not addressed by any of the schemes announced. Since they do not possess certain documents like ration cards, address proof, etc., the public distribution system also excludes such people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 29, 2020, an order was passed by the government that denied the labourers a safe return to their respective villages. Further, employers were told to pay wages to their workers and landlords were asked not to charge rent.This led to a belief that even though the suffering of poor is a constitutional concern, the Supreme Court is not be looked upon for answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this as a primary concern, social activists Harsh Mander and Anjali Bharadwaj, who had been working hard to look after these workers at various places in Delhi filed a petition seeking an arrangement of minimum wages for these people. On April 3, 2020, during the preliminary hearing, the Union of India was asked to respond to the allegations. The matter was then postponed to April 7, 2020. The petition, though aimed at providing relief to migrant workers, was turned by the court into seeking orders to limit the media from reporting about the spread of the coronavirus. The court further adjourned the case to April 20, 2020. The court failed to sit nor state any reason for not doing so on April 20, 2020. The only thing that the petitioners wanted enforcement of Article 21 \u2013 the right to life\u2013 of workers who had been deprived of their wages and livelihood by the lockdown imposed. However, all these efforts were in vain as the supreme court gave in its power of review of the government\u2019s policies and actions. The same was the condition for Mahua Moitra and Swami Agnivesh who gave petitions on behalf of migrant labourers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the lockdown, the police were strictly advised to be indulged in imposing the lockdown; the Delhi Police was instructed to continue arresting people related to the communal riots that happened in February. Muslims, despite being the primary victims of the violence and having to escape their homes were unsympathetically arrested in huge numbers, especially youth who peacefully protested about the CAA or NRC. The Criminal Procedure Code was violated according to which the names of those who were arrested had to be disclosed by the police. It indeed was impossible for anyone to access information on people who got arrested during the lockdown. Judiciary should treat this lockdown as a chance to showcase courts as a service rather than a mere place. There must be plans to conduct actual hearings or running courts in shifts. Just in case any court needs to conduct physical court hearings, they need to implement some guidelines such as only those lawyers\/litigants whose cases are there for the day\u2019s hearing should have permission to enter court halls. Thermal image cameras must be set up at the doorway of court building, to spot affected or potential individuals. There should be specialized individuals assigned for checking the papers and other objects carried by the lawyers\/litigants without having to touch the same. At the doorway, there should be a hand wash kept to make sure sanitization of each and everyone who enters and exits the court premises. There should be strict rules and regulations on the working of public services like canteens within the court with all precautions. Masks, gloves and sanitizers should be provided. Citizens or rather the laymen hope that open court hearings would be reinstated within the near future as soon as possible. Access to justice is a fundamental right of a person that no pandemic, person or institution can seize them from! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fanan Rasheed Sastra University, Thanjavur, Kerala The dreadful pandemic named COVID-19 is a major global crisis not only in terms of the toll it has taken on human life, businesses, jobs, falling of economy, restriction in freedom of movement and associations but also due to denial of the basic right to justice promised by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[218,192,219,220,191],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-talks","tag-fanan-rasheed","tag-free-online-publishing-platform","tag-judiciary","tag-pandemic","tag-vov-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}