Opinion For women to access justice, we need more than laws

She recounted how her lawyer, while helping out with her case, had asked her to “untie her hair”. Fearing that her objection to his comment would end with him dropping her case, she chose to not react at all.

True access to justice requires more than just laws. Empathy, efficiency and structural reform are needed to humanise the very institutions meant to deliver justice.

Instead of being a neutral space, courts today have become a site where social prejudices are re-articulated when it comes to women litigants, leading to concerns over the sensitivity of those entrusted with delivering justice.

Decades after Independence, India’s legal institutions largely remain male-dominated spaces. This adds to the discomfiture of female litigants, who hesitate to express openly all that they go through after they approach the courts for help. This issue becomes especially monumental when litigants belong to the economically weaker sections of society.

Never mind the uncertain future of court proceedings, the decision to approach a court is never sudden. It is always a result of deliberate discussion and deep introspection.

A litigant waiting outside a courtroom corridor shared how she had been waiting for nearly eight years for her case hearing. She had first approached the court in 2017, after enduring a “decade-long abusive marriage”.

Though she had changed several lawyers over the years, each time hoping for a fair chance at representation, her faith in the system had waned. She said the hearings were repeatedly postponed and her lawyers often failed to appear before the judge.

“Someone should ask the women gathered here whether they really need these laws,” she said softly, her words capturing both her despair and disillusionment with the very system meant to protect her.

Another woman was in court with her five-year-old son to file a domestic violence case after she was allegedly sexually abused by her husband.

Women approaching the authorities to file complaints are routinely advised to “compromise” and “adjust”, she said. “Aakhir koi kab tak inka torture bardasht karega? Bardasht karne ki bhi seema hoti hai (How long can a person tolerate torture? Even tolerance has a limit),” she remarked, her voice tinged with anger and exhaustion.

Her words reflected how patriarchal norms continue to shape social expectations, even within legal institutions, valourising a woman’s endurance within marriage and discouraging her resistance.

A woman seeking a divorce recalled a mediator’s “advice” that trivialised her suffering with a beauty stereotype: “Tumhe divorce lene ki kya zarurat hai jab tumhe gora pati mila hai (What is the need to file for divorce when your husband is fair-complexioned?).”

Such instances illustrate only a fraction of the challenges that women from diverse social backgrounds encounter in their pursuit of justice. From financial constraints and safety concerns to unprofessional behaviour, procedural delays and inadequate judicial infrastructure, the obstacles are numerous and deeply embedded within the legal system. Such barriers not only hinder a woman’s ability to seek redress, but also erode their trust in the institutions meant to protect her.

Though courts exist to settle disputes, we need to ask ourselves if justice can truly be delivered in such an environment?

Therefore, creating court environments that are truly responsive to women’s needs requires not just policy reforms, but also a process of ground-level introspection that reconsiders the gendered culture of the justice system itself.

The writer is an ICSSR Doctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Lucknow National Editor Shalini Langer curates the fortnightly ‘She Said’ column