Matters of accountability

Nobody’s above the law

It is, of course, for the judiciary to prove, in letter and spirit, that nobody is above the law. That would, just as certainly, require a measure of transparency in the working of the judiciary. And since the judicial system is the ultimate custodian of the law, the utmost oversight must be employed to ensure it is never in breach of the law itself, no matter how inconsequential. In this context the attitude of certain elements within the judiciary has been difficult to understand. Why would the Supreme Court registrar, for example, refuse a government request to reveal post-retirement privileges of judges?

Of course the same rule applies across the board. No institution, no matter how crucial to state stability, should be allowed authority to supersede the state itself. And in matters where taxpayer money is involved, there can simply be no justification for withholding crucial information, especially if there are fears that certain elements are leveraging the secrecy provided to them to sidestep the system. The natural route is for the state to take such elements to courts where, once again, the judiciary’s own actions would have put it in the dock.

Too many people have fought too hard to restore the judiciary’s credibility in the public’s eye. But even as lawyers and judges enjoy the hangover of the independence that the Lawyers Movement brought them, they must remember that as an institution they have largely remained a let-down. For all the noise, the movement could not transform into reforms that could affect the common man. Lawyers, judges and analysts were made famous by the movement, but the way the common man is dragged through courts, and how cases linger for decades – making a mockery of justice – has still not been addressed. With the media making the people more aware, and hence more powerful, those in important positions will have to deliver before they are overtaken by circumstances of their own making, but no longer in their control.