Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said in International Lawyers Conference that Citizens should feel that “ the law belongs to them” and that Government is trying to draft new laws in India “in simple language”. Inaugurating the Bar Council of India's (BCI) two-day “International Lawyers Conference 2023”, he also flagged concerns about cyber terrorism and money laundering besides the use of artificial intelligence for destructive purposes.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud was the chief guest of the programme.
Modi said these dangers do not recognise borders and jurisdiction and called for collaborative efforts among legal frameworks of different countries to deal with them.
"When danger is global, then the manner to deal with it should also be global," he said.
The prime minister cited the example of cooperation between air traffic control systems of all countries to ensure air travel and said preparing a global framework to deal with these dangers is not about one government or country.
Besides CJI, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice of the United Kingdom Alex Chalk KC, Attorney General for India R Venkataramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Bar Council of India chairman and senior advocate Manan Kumar Mishra and others, including several judges of the apex court, were present at the event.
Commenting on the legal system, he said the language used to write laws and in the judicial process plays a big role in ensuring justice.
"We in the Indian government are thinking that law should be produced in two ways. One draft will be in the language you are used to," he said to the audience drawn from the legal field. "The second draft will be in a language which the country's common man can understand. He should consider the law his own."
Modi said there had been a practice of drafting laws in a complex manner.
One of the aspects of justice delivery on which there is very little discussion is the language and the simplicity of law, the prime minister noted.
He said the government is trying to make laws simple and understandable to the common man but the system has been born and brought up in the same framework and he was trying to pull it out of that.
Modi said that he has a lot to do and a lot of time for it. "So I will keep doing it," he said.
"We have made the first beginning in the Data Protection law," the prime minister said, referring to attempts to draft laws in simple language. He also welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to provide the operative part of a judgment to the litigant in his language.
Dubbing the Indian Penal Code and the Evidence Act as colonial-ear laws, the government had recently introduced the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill to replace the IPC, Evidence Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Referring to the passage of the women's reservation bill in Parliament, he said this will give new direction and energy to women-led development. He also spoke of the G20 Summit and the successful Chandrayaan mission.
With India working hard to achieve the goal of becoming a developed country by 2047, it requires the base of a strong and impartial justice system, he said. Impartial justice has a big role in the growing faith of the world in India, Modi added.
Speaking on alternate dispute resolution, the prime minister said with the increasing complexity of commercial transactions, the ADR mechanism has gained currency all over the world.
To systematise the informal tradition of dispute resolution in India, the government has enacted a law on mediation. Similarly, Lok Adalats are also playing a big role and they have settled nearly seven lakh cases in the last six years.
Speaking on the occasion , CJI Chandrachud said institutional collaboration is the precursor to solution finding while adjudicating judicial questions and it also plays a significant role in increasing access to justice.
He said it is utopian to think that there will be a day when "we find perfect solutions with no challenges to the justice delivery".
"However, it is definitively not utopian to aspire for a world where nations, institutions and most importantly individuals are open to engage with and learn from one another without feeling threatened or belittled," Chandrachud ssaid.
He said that while the Constitution provides for separation of power among the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, it also creates a space for institutions to learn from each other and deliver justice.
"Institutional collaboration is a precursor to solution finding not only while adjudicating judicial questions but it also plays a significant role in increasing access to justice," Justice Chandrachud said.
In his speech, the CJI said that instead of addressing specific challenges to justice delivery, he seeks to present an "umbrella framework" to address these challenges and find innovative solutions.
Referring to engagement between nations, institutions and individuals, Justice Chandrachud said, "It is in this engagement that I believe lies the framework to find usual solutions."
Knowledge sharing is a two-way street and decisions of the Indian Supreme Court are being regularly cited and relied upon by foreign courts, he said.
"At the administrative level too, the Indian judiciary must remain receptive to collaborating with various nations. India has played a pivotal role by constructing the Supreme Court buildings in Mauritius and in Bhutan," the CJI said.
He said that drafting of the Constitution of India by the Constituent Assembly is a classic example of engaging beyond partisan lines.
"We find the same bi-partisan effort and this is something to which we, as citizens of India must be proud, has gone into the passing of the women's reservation bill in Parliament recently," Justice Chandrachud said.
He further said, "In our tendency to emphasise differences, we often forget the abundant examples of collaboration between institutions to further the interest of justice. This holds true not only in lofty constitutional challenges but more frequently in the everyday interaction between the courts and the government."
Citing an example, the CJI said a constitution bench of the Supreme Court is presently hearing a challenge pertaining to whether a person holding a driving licence for light motor vehicles can drive a commercial vehicle under the Motor Vehicles Act.
"Instead of viewing the case as an adversarial challenge, the court and the government are collaborating to protect the livelihoods of millions of drivers across the country," he said, adding that the ultimate aim of different institutions is the same and that is the progress and prosperity of the nation.