Make judicial systems more approachable : CJI

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, who presided over the event, stressed the need for SCO members to cooperate in tackling challenges common to the judiciary in their countries

Promoting technology to enhance efficiency of the judicial system and access to justice for the common people figured as major talking points at the two-day meeting of the Chief Justices and Chairpersons of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states that concluded in New Delhi on Saturday.

Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud (HT Photo)

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, who presided over the event, stressed the need for SCO members to cooperate in tackling challenges common to the judiciary in their countries, and urged them to strive for cooperation to make judicial systems more approachable to the common people. The aim of the conference was to foster effective judicial cooperation through shared wisdom and experience.

“The intention to strengthen and expand cooperation among the Supreme Courts of the SCO member states and to promote the use of technology to enhance the efficiency of the judicial system and Access to Justice were deliberated upon during the course of the meeting,” the Supreme Court said in a statement.

In his closing address, the CJI stressed upon the need to collectively adopt new mechanisms to make court processes simpler and more accessible.

The discussions highlighted several challenges facing the judicial systems in the SCO nations as the conference helped reflect upon the challenges common to their jurisdictions. Uzbekistan was entrusted the rotational presidency for the next year’s meeting.

Besides the CJI, who spoke about the smart court initiatives undertaken by India to simplify procedures and increase access to justice for citizens through digital infrastructure, two other senior judges of the Supreme Court of India – justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph – shared views on access to justice and institutional challenges facing the judiciary.

Justice Kaul raised concerns regarding overly populated prisons by undertrials and emphasized the issue of access to quality legal representation as a key element in the criminal justice system while highlighting several measures adopted by Indian courts to resolve the problem of access to justice.

Justice Joseph shared concerns on the infrastructure gap facing judiciary with regard to court halls and residential units for judicial officers at district level. To ensure India has an efficient, open and fair judicial system, he added that additional courts need to be projected to efficiently deal with the pending and freshly instituted cases.

The concerns raised by the Supreme Court judges was shared by other participants as well. The press note quoted Xiaochen Qiann, chief judge of the case-filing division of the Supreme People’s Court of China, who said that the “courtwork overload and limited judicial resources is a global challenge which needs to be addressed both nationally and collectively as members of SCO.”