Editorial: A Holistic Appraisal
INDIA JUSTICE REPORT
A Holistic Appraisal with Ground-Level Data
Members and friends of Common Cause know us for our commitment to citizens’ access to justice. We believe that the connection between democracy and justice system runs deep. The two strengthen each other and influence our well-being as a society. An opaque and obsolete legal apparatus, on the other hand, stymies economic growth and creates discontent and upheavals. And that, in our view, is a good reason for us to be joining hands with partner organisations to take stock of our criminal justice system. Things must change for a fair and forward-looking India.
Our work on police reforms and our track record of public interest litigations (PILs) also reinforce our faith in a robust justice system. Most Common Cause PILs have secured landmark judgments on matters as varied as fair allocations of national resources, to electoral reforms, to fair appointments to constitutional posts, to patients’ right to a dignified life and death. These have improved lives of fellow Indians, fought our collective cynicism, and made us believe that justice is our prerogative, not a matter of chance.
We also acknowledge that law enforcement is a demanding and labour-intensive process. It needs constant inputs and efforts from all stakeholders i.e., governments, communities, civil society, and academia. Law enforcement also needs protection from India’s increasingly venal political class and the exigencies of a divisive electoral system. We have come to a situation where business as usual will only take us down. However, an honest beginning can be made by taking stock of where we stand today and by starting a conversation about where we want to be.
Common Cause has made a modest contribution to this by launching two collaborative reports as tools for reforms in the police and judicial systems. The Status of Policing in India Reports (SPIR) and India Justice Reports (IJR) are aimed at making sense of what is wrong with the current scheme of things and how matters can be improved. The reports are brought out in ways that are simple, rigorous, and policyoriented.
Special issues of your journal have been brought out on the findings of the SPIRs in the past. This is the first time that a whole issue of your journal is dedicated to the India Justice Report (IJR).
The idea is to take the readers through the whole gamut of issues covered by the IJR. The two volumes of the fact-based reports are a result of long collaborations between some of India’s best-known civil society organisations, viz., Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), DAKSHA, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISSPrayas). The IJR has been edited by Maja Daruwala, a tireless campaigner for judicial reforms in India. She has outlined IJR’s vision and objectives in an article specially written for our readers.
The successive IJR volumes examine the criminal justice system through its four pillars viz., police, prisons, judiciary, and legal aid. It uses the latest data – collected over time by a string of government agencies – to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each pillar in every state of India. The data is arranged in ways that encourage constructive competition between states.
As always, your comments and suggestions would be welcome. Please write to us at commoncauseindia@gmail.com.
Vipul Mudgal
Editor
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