Why India must support judicial reform
Edgar Wallace, master of the thriller in his heyday, couldn’t himself have presided over a more thrilling outcome with his fictional Four Just Men than the one that was achieved through their press conference of January 12 by the real-life four just men — Justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
To clarify, by‘ thrilling’ I do not mean‘ sensation generating ’; I mean‘ ethical ly inspiring ’. Their act of collective disclosure is, in my view, a reflection of propriety, rightness, public-spiritedness and courage. Their decision should have come as a profoundly welcome event in the general atmosphere of bleakness that we as a country have been ploughing through. This is a bleakness compounded of intolerance, divisiveness, violence, secrecy and muteness wrought by either voluntary prudence or involuntary fear.
Instead, what we have in some dismayingly large measure is disapprobation of the judges’ act. This is reflected in various views of the following nature. One, that the judges should not have gone public. Two, that they should have sorted the matter ‘internally’. Three, that they have been guilty of shattering the citizen’s faith in the integrity of the Supreme Court. And four, that they have somehow seriously compromised the reputation and fair name of a major institutional pillar of this society’s civic architecture.
This sort of primly outraged self-righteousness is the hallmark of the well-bred person’s prioritisation of ‘correct manners’ over substantively right conduct. It is a prompt and no-nonsense rap-on-theknuckles unleashed by the expert on public etiquette. To what end? Presumably as a corrective against an ungentlemanly break from the decorous conventions and protocols of being neither seen nor heard. At best, this sort of reaction is feeble and priggish (without, however, being harmless in moulding public opinion). At worst, the reaction smacks of timidity and opportunism cloaked as stern headmasterish unbendingness in the cause of upholding decent schoolboy conduct.
In any event, in terms of what is mannerly or not, is it particularly well-mannered to summarily instruct the judges to ‘settle the issue internally’? This must be seen in the light of the pains which the justices have taken to explain the rationale for their action. It should be obvious (if the judges’ credibility is not to be discounted wholesale), that they had tried – but failed – to make much headway with the chief justice of India. This should be plain both from the letter they sent the CJI and the deposition made by them at the press conference.
To insist that they should have addressed the issue at a full meeting of all 24 judges of the Supreme Court is again incomprehensible. It is these four senior judges who had a problem. Why should the validity of their point of view depend on the endorsement of it by all or even a majority of the remaining judges?
Then there is the criticism that implicit in ‘going public’ was the judges’ determination to invite ‘the people’ to resolve the issue. This determination apparently took no note of the fact that it is the legislature, not the judiciary, that is elected by the people. The criticism may have some validity if we were to interpret the judges’ action as having been triggered by some instrumental objective of inviting direct public action in the matter.
The secrecy that shrouds domestic violence is frequently justified on the grounds that a household’s private affairs are no business of the public. The same logic apparently finds favour with those who hold the judges’ disclosures against them. Apart from anything else, the Supreme Court is not a family! And, if institutions such as the court and the bureaucracy have often conducted themselves like families — of which the mafia is a good example — in which members must observe the rules of loyalty, secrecy and mutual protection, then is this the sort of practice that deserves continued support and upholding?
Knowledge is said to empower people. That is a major (even if not only) reason why a free media is a paramount necessity for a reasonably functioning democracy. It is therefore, finally, disappointing and angering that so much of the criticism laid at the judges’ feet for ‘going public’ in the matter has come, precisely, from the media! It is as if the media were to say: ‘We are the champions of Truth, Transparency and Accountability – but be warned that we do not necessarily welcome, or approve of, your sharing information with us! You make easy presumptions about the media’s independence only at your own peril!’ It seems to be important, at this juncture, to say to the media: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?.’ —The Wire
S Subramanian is an economist, independent researcher, former National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and a retired Professor of the Madras Institute of Development Studies
The Supreme Court is not a family! And, if institutions such as the court and the bureaucracy have often conducted themselves like families then is this the sort of practice that deserves continued support and upholding?