DailyPost 2682
EASE OF JUSTICE
Justice delayed is justice denied. Justice should not only be done; it should seem to be done as well. These are some of truisms which given the state of affairs, it’s better to be forgotten. That is precisely the reason that such north stars of a civilized and developing nation, barely get discussed. If discussed by chance, it is just lip service and then each stakeholder is back to his cocooned existence. The disquiet is everywhere, every protest is for justice, every dispute is for justice, every executive action is longed for, for dispensing justice. What is their fate? Has justice been ingrained in our thought process and practice or is it just an official judicial legalese, we have to live with?
There is cry of justice all around and there is hardly anybody to hear. They don’t have an ear for it. They never had. Pushing this complex issue encompassing every powerful stakeholder quietly at the judiciary’s doorstep, is doing injustice to the issue at hand. It is very easy to do that. The number of pending cases can be shown as a data point to prove your contention. Nonetheless, there is so much injustice all around the place, in nearly everything, that judiciary can set right only a minor fraction of it. Only the cases that come to it and one odd which it takes up on its own. Amongst these as well, there are any number of cases where the government is a party and more often than not, the aggrieved private party moves the court.
Ease of justice comes on the wings of ease of life and ease of business. Inordinate delay in a variety of services, benefits, approvals, permissions et al stark at us while we so longingly look forward to ease of life and ease of business, being offered to us on the platter. It is easier said than done. The transformational changes have still to start. Some peripheral ones are out there in the open. The degraded social security, if any such thing exists on the formal basis, cannot be called justified and when there is no movement in the right direction; towards the well-established models the world over.
Mere incorporation or some rudimentary benefits does not amount to ease of business and in a similar manner some largesse or water or electricity cannot be deemed to be delivering ease of life. Without ease of justice how can ease of life or ease of business be achieved? In a purely limited sense, think of the damage a civil dispute or business dispute does to the individual or business and there is no recourse. The law takes its own course and time, not to talk of executive decisions too. Then where will the ease of life come from? Being treated as a human being in every single way is to provide human dignity; ease of life will automatically emanate out of it.
PROVIDING EASE TO THE CITIZEN IS ANTITHETICAL TO THE SYSTEMS WE HAVE CREATED.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.