First step to equality is providing equal access to law: CJI Surya Kant

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said the first step to equality is providing equal access to the law and emphasised that it should not merely be a procedural nicety. Speaking at the XIV St Petersburg International Legal Forum in Russia on Wednesday, the CJI said equal access to law must fructify in the conferment of actual rights rather than hollow statutory declarations.

“We must ask ourselves what it actually takes for equality before the law to become real? My answer, which I draw from my experience presiding over the world’s largest and most complex judicial systems, is that the first step to equality is providing equal access to the law.

“Such access cannot merely be a procedural nicety and must fructify in the conferment of actual rights rather than hollow statutory declarations,” the CJI said.

He said the birthplace of equality was not necessarily the Magna Carta in 1215.

“Rather, my own personal belief is that its roots are traceable to Kautilya’s Arthashastra, which belongs to the Indian subcontinent and propounded the theory of equality in the fourth century,” he said.

CJI Kant said the Indian Constitution, upon its inception, promised a new dawn and conferred upon the people a series of Fundamental Rights, including equality before the law, life with dignity and equal justice.

“The true challenge was never to solely recite these guarantees but to deliver them across geographical distances, irrespective of any economic and social disadvantages, language barriers and cultural diversity,” he said.

The CJI said the most significant obstacle to equality is not the lack of legal or statutory support, rather it is manifested on account of geographical, social and economic disparities.

“Consequently, the Indian constitutional courts have interpreted and provided a broad and expansive interpretation of constitutional guarantees in order to eliminate all such barriers. This approach ensures that access to law and justice is not just a technical convenience but a non-discriminatory founding principle of governance,” he said.

The CJI said equal justice and equal law are not ceremonial phrases and they are the conditions under which a legal order may credibly call itself law at all.

Regarding the international legal framework, the CJI said numerous nations in the global east and south are still constructing their institutions, addressing the repercussions of colonialism and tackling poverty. “These countries frequently endure scrutiny and pressure that are not proportionally applied to wealthier and more influential States, whose own compliance records are not necessarily irreproachable,” the CJI said.