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Soli Sorabjee for justice with mercy
| “The vital need is to evolve a jurisprudence of compassion” |
All smiles: The former Attorney-General, Soli Sorabjee, greets the former Supreme Court Judge, V.R. Krishna Iyer, on his 94th birthday, in Kochi on Saturday. The former Supreme Court Judge, K.T. Thomas, is also seen.
Kochi: The former Attorney General of India Soli J. Sorabjee on Saturday said that justice should be tempered with mercy.
Delivering the fourth law lecture on “Human Rights Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of India” organised by the V.R. Krishna Iyer National Foundation for Law and Social Justice, he said: “In our country where millions live in poverty whilst a few roll in their boundless wealth and flaunt it at weddings and other functions, the vital need is to evolve a jurisprudence of compassion.”
He said compassion should not be mistaken for pity. “Pity has a certain element of condescension. Compassion is that whereby we make others’ misery our own and which moves us to the relief of those who are in distress.”
He said that orders of the Supreme Court regarding custodial violence and awarding monetary compensation to victims of illegal detention were noteworthy. It was a fact that in India torture was rampant in police stations. The compensation was in addition to the remedy in private law for damages. The main anxiety of the court was to ensure prompt redress by payment of compensation to the victim or his family. The underlying rationale was that there must be a meaningful remedy for violation fundamental rights.
He said that it was true that public interest litigation (PIL) had “degenerated into publicity interest litigation, private interest litigation and political interest litigation — the three perils of PIL.” At times it had become an instrument of blackmail and oppression. It was forgotten that every matter of public interest like increase in the prices of onion or railway fares could not be the basis of a PIL.
“PIL is not a pill for every ill,” he said.
“However, abuse of PIL is no ground for its abolition or placing unreasonable fetters on it. All judicial activism in PIL has greatly contributed to the protection and promotion of human rights, particularly social economic rights,” he added.
The directions issued by the court in respect of so-called care homes and asylum and with respect to young children working in dangerous occupations detrimental to their health clearly reflect a compassionate approach.
The former Supreme Court Judge K.T. Thomas presided.
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