NEW DELHI: Attorney general R Venkataramani on Sunday appealed to both the Executive and the Judiciary to change their approach a bit and said that governments should open up their minds to radically new approaches to justice administration and courts be attentive to the sensitivity involved in areas of governance.
“The Attorney General has neither the power of the purse nor the power of a mandamus.But its only strength is the ethical appeals it can wield for the attention of the bar and the government. The Bench knows its problems. Courts are alive to their challenges… Many other issues of governance both domestic and global are not to be easily scanned and critiqued. All that I wish to say is that none of them can be solved by mere legal or traditional analysis nor by conservative estimates,” the AG said.
“While governments should open up their minds to radically new approaches to justice administration, courts will be equally attentive to the sensitivity and complexity involved in many areas of governance. In other words from a cost-benefit analysis approach we must move towards a benefit-cost analysis approach. Greater the government invests in justice, the greater the Gross National peace index .These and our commitments will be the dharma of justice and the karma of law,” he said.
He said the constitutionally promised benefits of access to justice to all cannot be a mere litigation access. “Resolution of disputes and differences cannot continue through the adversarial system. It is the poor, the marginalised, and the economically weaker sections that suffer the vicissitudes of the adversarial system, particularly in administration of criminal justice. The need for a national platform of legal reforms at the level of the bar is urgent. I am pursuing with the government the subject of litigation management policy and the government has taken up this matter very earnestly. I am happy to state that the data collection and analysis work is on and a policy framework can emerge very soon, he said.
“The Attorney General has neither the power of the purse nor the power of a mandamus.But its only strength is the ethical appeals it can wield for the attention of the bar and the government. The Bench knows its problems. Courts are alive to their challenges… Many other issues of governance both domestic and global are not to be easily scanned and critiqued. All that I wish to say is that none of them can be solved by mere legal or traditional analysis nor by conservative estimates,” the AG said.
“While governments should open up their minds to radically new approaches to justice administration, courts will be equally attentive to the sensitivity and complexity involved in many areas of governance. In other words from a cost-benefit analysis approach we must move towards a benefit-cost analysis approach. Greater the government invests in justice, the greater the Gross National peace index .These and our commitments will be the dharma of justice and the karma of law,” he said.
He said the constitutionally promised benefits of access to justice to all cannot be a mere litigation access. “Resolution of disputes and differences cannot continue through the adversarial system. It is the poor, the marginalised, and the economically weaker sections that suffer the vicissitudes of the adversarial system, particularly in administration of criminal justice. The need for a national platform of legal reforms at the level of the bar is urgent. I am pursuing with the government the subject of litigation management policy and the government has taken up this matter very earnestly. I am happy to state that the data collection and analysis work is on and a policy framework can emerge very soon, he said.
