Judges, the world over, should not be recruited through political appeasement or by popular vote, nor should practicing lawyers be made judges. Their recruitment, training and maintenance should be a class separately above, so that only the best in capability and integrity would opt for it.
With the kind of respect bestowed on them, judges should be held accountable for the judgments that they make. i.e. A death sentence, when proved wrong, if not properly explainable by the judge, should actually amount to attempt to murder or to at least some lesser degree of responsibility, than the absolute unaccountability of today.
For those who feel that this is an intimidating situation for the judge, a proper explanation as to why he judged so, based on the available evidence, would suffice. And for the rest of those who believe that this is a Damocles' sword - indeed it is. But is it not better to have it on the head of a few people who are capable, qualified, trained and paid for it, than to have it over every other human being on this planet, for the fear of a callous judgment? The prime duty of the judiciary is to deliver justice, than to dilute regulations in order to accommodate mediocrity.
This accountability would ensure that the lower court judgments are just and fair, making the judiciary prompt and cost effective and forcing all other government departments to fall in line.
An accountable lower court will also eradicate the unspoken public fear that there is a nexus between various forces to prolong the judicial process, in order to extract more.
Further discretionary powers should be withdrawn from all facets of the Law, so that corruption cannot sustain in society. The provision to punish arbitrarily, vested as discretionary power on the judge, would only make justice to precariously perch on lawyer's skill, if not already overtaken by influence, power, prejudice or corruption, in order to get the judgment proclaimed at its discretionary minimum or maximum.
Power does not corrupt, only discretionary power does.
The present practice of the judiciary relying heavily on prior higher court judgments should be totally done away with, because the exact context, the related evidence, whether the case was properly represented and contested & whether the concerned parties were genuine, cannot be ascertained. As of now, any two conniving lawyers can sabotage any law of the land, if one of them is willing to lose for the sake of gain. This back-door provision for creating laws and sub-rules should be stopped at any cost. Law making should be left to the representative council of the people of the land, but not without the intervention of the judiciary. In a democracy, you cannot rule out the possibility of a band of scoundrels winning the elections or in certain other context, a dictator, trying to overthrow the rule of Law, in which case who else can come to the rescue, but an accountable judiciary. An accountable judiciary has to be held supreme.
The evasive tendency of adding law after law, without affixing accountability for judges and lawyers, has made the entire system bulky and cumbersome. This has led to a predicament where a judge cannot entertain an argument without the exact section/subsection numerically specified, or where a lawyer cannot specialize in more than one stream of the Law, even after a lifetime's effort. At the same time, it is expected of even the commonest of men to know the Law, for ignorance of the Law is not considered an excuse. How unjust can injustice be? This is a clear case of dividing the world on the basis of knowledge, where the well informed intimidates the very existence of the less informed. The Law definitely needs to be simplified.
Further the escape route for the rich and wealthy, in the form of fine, is one of life's greatest injustices against the poor. For the poor, both imprisonment and fine are great pains, whereas for the other, only one of them is. Only when this exit route is scrapped, will justice prevail in any land.
Judiciary, the world over, honestly feels and believes that it is doing a great job, but equipped with only the present set of legislation, the reality is far from that.
I hope that someday, the Thomas Easaw Amendment of the Law would be implemented, making justice a man's birthright and that every man would be able to demand it, rather than beg and plead for it as he is forced to do today.
Thomas Easaw as writer, musician, philosopher and social reformer, is a one-man peace and justice movement, working towards the betterment of mankind.
Thomas Easaw is also on a lone effort to change the judicial system and is already before the Courts in India seeking to implement the Thomas Easaw's Proposed Amendments of the Law.
http://www.thomaseasaw.com
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