Its the process

embarrassment.

The bid to decriminalise homosexuality is not the only sign that legal reform is in the offing. In seeking to address the judicial backlog,arguably our biggest legal problem,Moily has suggested a slew of changes see Op-Ed page. He talks of reducing government litigation the bulk of the pending cases by administrative reform,including holding officers responsible for decisions instead of simply passing the buck on to the courts. As Moily also points out,improving methods for collecting evidence like installing the latest forensic and scientific equipment in police stations do not require constitutional amendments. On judicial accountability,the sheer logistics of impeaching Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta high court even after the chief justice has recommended it,and the government has agreed highlights the need for a systemic overhaul. Moily seems alive to this problem,and is pushing for impeachment proceedings to begin. But he also talks of the need to take the higher judiciary along with him,especially in sensitive matters like making judges assets public. And on reforming the IAS itself a significant litigant in the courts,the writer of 15 volumes of the Administrative Reforms Commissions recommendations,talks about the creative destruction of Macaulays system,of the need to recruit IAS officers when they are younger,and of the need for accountability.

That legal reform is essential in India is a no-brainer. With over three crore cases pending and the process itself the punishment,the structures that Macaulay set up 150 years ago continue to plague us; they have never been fully reformed. It is hoped that the law ministers ideas are soon matched by action.