People’s faith in Constitutional institutions gets strengthened when justice is seen to be delivered, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday even as he cited the delay in getting justice as one of the major challenges faced by the people of the country.
Mr. Modi stressed that new laws should be written in a clear manner and in regional languages to bring in “ease of justice,” so that even the poor can easily understand them and legal language doesn’t become a barrier for citizens.
He also urged the State governments to adopt a humane approach towards undertrial prisoners.
The Prime Minister made these remarks while inaugurating the All India Conference of Law Ministers and Law Secretaries via video conference. The two-day conference is being held at
Ekta Nagar in Kevadia near the ‘Statue of Unity’ in Gujarat and is being attended by Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju among others.
Delivering the inaugural address, Mr. Modi said that people should neither feel the absence of government nor its pressure and that is his government, in the last eight years, has scrapped more than 1,500 obsolete and irrelevant laws that were a relic of British rule and reduced as many as 32,000 compliances for the sake of “innovation and ease of living”.
“When justice is seen to be delivered, then the faith of the countrymen in the constitutional institutions is strengthened. And when justice is delivered, the confidence of the common man goes up,” Mr. Modi said.
Stressing on ensuring the ease of justice for the citizen, he said, “Delay in getting justice is one of the major challenges being faced by the people of our country. But our judiciary is seriously working towards resolving this issue. In this Amrit Kaal, we will have to work together to tackle this.”
Mr. Modi stated that villages have been resorting alternative dispute resolution mechanism for a long time and it can be adopted at State level as well.
Speaking about the importance of use of regional languages in the legal system, he said, “Obscurity of law creates complexity. If law is comprehensible to the common man, it will have a different impact”.
In some countries, when a law is framed, it is decided in two ways. One is by giving a detailed explanation of its legal terms using technical terminology, and another is by writing it in the regional language so that the common man can understand it, he added. “Therefore, while framing a law, our focus should be such that even the poor could understand the new law,” Mr. Modi added.
Talking about the Constitutional division of power, Mr. Modi, “Be it the government, Parliament, our courts, all three are, in a way, the children of the same mother. So even though the functions are different, if we look at the spirit of the constitution, there is no scope for argument or competition”.
He also stressed on the need for modern technology in legal system and underlined its role in delivering justice during the pandemic. “e-Courts Mission is moving fast in the country. Systems like virtual hearing and production have become a part of our legal system. e-filing of cases is also being encouraged. With the advent of 5G in the country, such systems will gain pace, and many changes are inherent. Many States should keep this in mind and update and upgrade their system,” he said.
