The lawyers8217; credibility crisis

There are two choices on this issue which demand that constitutional values be put into actual practice.The Union Government8217;s golden generosity can be spent either in the traditional style of an Indian marriage that gathers the national and international glitterati of lawyers, judges and politicians accompanied by a powerful media blitz. Or it can be spent largely on building the human skill and resource base of lawyers in public service.

The Supreme Court Bar Association is expected to reflect a culture different from the political culture of development without transparency and justice.The general Indian lawyer today has no publicly funded support base for access to relevant knowledge. Consequently, the globalisation and liberalisation moves of the Indian economy and the economic fate of its people have been determined without any corresponding legislative programme put out by the SCBA to ensure socio-economic justice to women, children and the poorest.

The pre-Independence lawyer who headed social, economic and legal reform has all but disappeared alongwith the disappearance of the grassrootspolitician. The sad consequence has been that the legal initiative to control the nation8217;s destiny in terms of the directive principles that are declared by the Constitution to be fundamental in the governance of the country, has slipped entirely out of the hands of lawyers. It has gone completely into the hands of administrators and politicians who operate the public money in secrecy and remember the courts or the Constitution only when they are in deep trouble.

The SCBA can end this immediately by using the Re one crore for setting up a computer linkage directly with Parliament and the key ministries with its own body of lawyers dealing with policy initiatives. Since most of the ideas on investment, commerce and industrialisation co-me from abroad it is essential that the computer base accessible to all lawyers in the SCBA be effectively linked to public information sources abroad.

If the SCBA voice cannot be heard in these areas of government decision-making, then it writes itself off into irrelevance.The interest on Rs one crore alone should be enough to ensure a decent honorarium for those working on this.

If lawyers are not to be permanently divorced from the public interest on national projects and dispute settlement mechanisms, then they need a constant updating of skills alongwith the updated knowledge base. There is not a single SCBA programme on this. The result is that even existing skills like examination and cross-examination, the finding of information relevant to a case and the conversion of that information into an efficient legal argument have almost been lost.

That should force the SCBA to frame a legal education relevant to Indian needs. This requires specialised lawyers committees having a holistic constitutional approach that does not shut out the Constitutional or human rights from commercial or tax law.

But as of today, the SCBA8217;s role as a watchdog of the public interest is almost non-existent. The criminal justice system has been criminalised in Delhi itself. Judicialappointments go on in secrecy without the SCBA offering a data base on judgments by the candidates. Legal aid is run on most unfortunate lines without the SCBA talking of an efficient or productive use of public funds.

The courts are being sidelined by a host of commissions and tribunals with increasing cannibalisation of the judicial component, with the SCBA as a mute witness. The SCBA has been unable so far to provide a level-playing field to its own members by demanding that appointment of public sector lawyers be advertised and proper selection be held. The credibility of the Indian arbitration process is at an all time low thanks to what its star arbitrators do. And lawyers are increasingly kept out legislatively from dispute settlement mechanisms.

The golden jubilee money should be used for public service. Not for stone monuments.