The Hindu : Tackling judicial arrears

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Friday, Apr 19, 2002

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Tackling judicial arrears

By T. K. Viswanathan

The full potential of information technology applications in the administration of justice has not been realised.

THE QUESTION of judicial arrears has engaged the attention of successive Governments and Law Commissions. Various proposals such as establishing specialised tribunals to take over the workload of the High Courts, increasing the manpower of the Judiciary and the number of courts, simplifying procedures and cutting down appeals have been suggested as possible remedies. Some of them have been tried but the problem remains. Failure to solve this problem raises the question whether we are bereft of innovative ideas or lacking the will.

The magic key lies in implementing information systems right from the Supreme Court to the subordinate courts at the district level. The full potential of information technology applications in the administration of justice has not been realised as yet in India. Even the conservative English legal system, steeped in what Maitland called the toughness of the taught tradition, had to acknowledge its usefulness in the administration of justice. The Woolf Report of 1996 devotes a chapter to the role of information technology in the administration of justice. Information technology, the Report observes, is a vital tool for judges in assuming far greater responsibility for case management. This enables the judges wherever they may be located to access up to date information about the status of individual cases. Case tracking will enable daily reminders, progress reports, lists of outstanding tasks and notices of who has responsibility for further actions. This sort of case-flow management system facilitates the monitoring of the progress of cases, allocation of resources within the courts including the scheduling of judges' workloads, listing of cases etc., thus producing a management information system about costs, delays and types of cases being processed. In this way, the Report maintains, information technology can support judges in supervising and controlling cases from their initial filing through to their final disposal.

The importance of an efficient justice delivery system for foreign investment and economic growth can be gauged by the fact that the World Bank in "Building Institutions for Markets — World Development Report 2002" devotes a chapter on judicial systems. It observes that when judges are accountable for their actions, judicial systems can be more efficient, with judges providing faster and fairer solutions to cases. The Report emphasises that generating accurate judicial statistics revised daily, will go to long way in solving the problem of arrears since judges care about their reputation. According to the Report, such an effect has been reported in certain countries. Reporting judicial statistics is also effective, according to the Report, because it provides a basis on which judges' efficiency can be assessed and therefore their reputation. Open information flows introduce greater accountability of judges to the users of the judicial system and to the general public and increases their efficiency, rather than simple increases in financial and human resources. Such statistics even without any enforcement mechanisms have been found to reduce delay, according to the Report.

Currently, data about judicial arrears has to be culled out from the Annual Report of the Ministry of Law, Justice & Company Affairs laid before Parliament every year. However, the data does not reveal much about the nature of cases pending. A consolidated figure without any break-up does not afford any guidance to a law researcher on the nature of the problem to be addressed. A judicial database of case law is required to be designed containing details about the Act, the section of the Act under which the cause of action is invoked by the litigants, the legal nature of the dispute, outcome of dispute, whether appeal was upheld, the names of the judges who heard them, the number of hours taken, adjournments granted, the lawyers who appeared for the parties, etc. Digitally signed judgment copies can be posted on the homepage of the courts facilitating free access to the appellate court as well as to the public. Structuring such a vast judicial database will enable us to map the judicial terrain on a real time basis. It can reveal on a real time basis, the pendency of cases, court-wise, subject-wise, Act-wise as well as Judge-wise. Enterprise resource planning tools will facilitate Chief Justices to monitor in real time the progress of pending cases by the click of a button. Statistics are most effective when information on time taken to dispose of cases by judges are individualised and made available to the media. Data warehousing packages will enable the Chief Justices to analyse and take suitable action in their management of the court dockets. Availability of real time data will enable them to assess the quality and performance of the judges more effectively.

Such a judicial database will have another advantage. Since no empirical data is available as to the working of various Acts, scientific law reform is non-existent. No data is available as to the number of cases filed under the various enactments in force, the sections under which they were filed. Currently law reform depends on the accidents of litigation. The internet has broken down the geographical barriers. Nation-states are trying to negotiate common rules for choice of judicial forum and choice of applicable law to cyberspace transactions. The world is moving towards a uniform set of legal rules to be interpreted and applied by courts of different countries. A global justice system facilitating forum shopping is in the offing. As the digital revolution sweeps across the world and society breaks with the past giving way to a new civilisation based on information and knowledge wherein speed is the essence of everything, the question what sort of legal system and dispute resolution mechanism should service the new knowledge economy assumes great importance. Michigan has shown the way to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the information revolution. To attract more companies to do business in Michigan, the State has enacted a law creating a cyber court for resolving hi-tech disputes. A judge would preside over the online court system, which requires electronic document filing and teleconferencing for arguments and the cyber court would take advantage of video and audio conferencing technology, the Internet and other communications technology to hear matters. In essence, the cyber court would become a virtual court. The responsibility of tackling judicial arrears is not solely of the Government. The legal profession and the Judiciary also have equal responsibility. The Head of Civil Justice in England, the Vice-Chancellor Sir Richard Scott, has emphasisedthat changes in attitude of the Judiciary and the legal professions are as important as those in procedure.

(The writer is Member-Secretary, Law Commission of India. The views expressed are his own.)

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