Judiciary Reforms

todo

Issues with removal procedure of judges

refer: Removal of Judges

• judges susceptible to political process of voting which may or may not impeach judges despite a 3 member committee holding him guilty
• entire process concerns concerns of a possibility of harming judicial independence
• terms “misbehaviour” and “incapacity” not defined
• process too elaborate and cumbersome
• process hasn’t been able ho hold judiciary accountable

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Issues with the collegium system

• no transparency
  • allegations of nepotism, favoritism
• role of exec compromised & diluted
  • balance disturbed
• India only country where judges appt themselves
  • checks and balances missing
• tends to favour particular sections of society
  • not representative
  • no ppl from marginalized sections
  • only 11 female judges out of 230+ SC judges
• tend to threaten justice delivery mechanism
  • inordinate delays on appt. of HC judges
  • depleting numbers in higher judiciary
  • can be attributed to lack of secretariat to help collegium in its functioning
  • eg. out of sanctioned 1098 strength in 25 HC, only 645 are filled
• Justice JS Verma (principal author in Second Judges’ Case 1993): collegium system has been a failure
  • despite primacy of exec, some of the finest judges appted in first 4 decades
  • in last 3 decades, appt thru collegium have often turned out to be erroneous
• some critics argues that collegium system amounts to rewriting of constitution

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