A call for Legal shake-up

Indian society is becoming complex. We have always believed that our legal system was next to none. When all other existing disciplines such as technology, science, medicine and education made changes and conversions, the discipline of law refused to make the change, clinging to its age old provisions. Our legal system is frozen in time, a time hundred of years ago, out of date and out of touch.

The legal system touches and affects the daily lives of all of us; Freedom and democracy cannot exist without it. Our legal system needs to make some very big changes to help cut down on the rising problems in the society. If we believe we are to serve the law, as it was created to uphold the rights of all citizens, then we are all accountable to act in ways to change today's system.

Our modern society offers freedoms and opportunities unheralded a generation ago. But with new freedoms come new crimes and threats to our society. We are yet to formulate specific and comprehensive cyber laws to cover all acts of computer criminals and proactive mechanism to tackle such offenses. The link between crime and punishment has almost entirely been severed. New crimes and threats demand not only ‘more stringent’ laws, but also real-time legislative responses that accommodate each significant transformation of criminal conduct.

Retired people are conned out of their life's savings, businesses loose lakhs of rupees when their handshake agreement goes sour. There are many lives that have been irrevocably changed by their encounter with the Indian legal system, as it exists today.

Problems in Punjab, Nandigram, UP and other places across the country are eye openers. These are issues at stake. Its adverse impact on the economy can’t be ignored. Each disruption causes delays, hold-ups, confusion and wastages. These events erode investor confidence, and the claim that India has a perfect legal system starts sounding hollow. These incidents are evidence of flaws in exisiting legal system. We should have legal reforms that facilitate economic activity by protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, and taking collective action to provide the required physical and organizational infrastructure.

Legal reform and development strengthen a country’s judicial system and develop a more impartial, effective, and well-organized judicial/social system. We must now act upon our legal system with a sense of urgency, purpose, and passion in order to bring the long-overdue changes. It is necessary to devise new laws, procedures and processes that provide confidence and respect for legal system among the Indian citizenry.

The rule of law is protected only when there is a fairly relevant legal system that responds to needs and problems in a fair, non-discriminatory, and effective manner .   Only a formally rational legal system can achieve "legal domination" (rule of law) through consistent reforms and application of general rules. Excellence in legal research and reforms is extremely important, because it will help shape the quality of the rule of law.

The issue of legal reforms attacks the very basis of democracy in India, and the time has come to tackle it in a systematic manner.