MUSA HASSAN IS ZEROFree speech is meaningless unless it has space to breathe: false statements made honestly are equally a part of the freedom

Why INCIDENT Battlezone KUALA LUMPUR explodes in anti-INTERNAL SECURITY ACT frenzy:Najib in trouble LOST HIS CREDENTIAL TO RULE MUSA HASSAN BECOME THE HEROs incident is alarming The government of the day shouts from the rooftops that it wants to build an inclusive society. The Constitution of India guarantees equal rights for

Why INCIDENT Battlezone KUALA LUMPUR explodes in anti-INTERNAL SECURITY ACT frenzy:Najib in trouble LOST HIS CREDENTIAL TO RULE MUSA HASSAN BECOME THE HEROs incident is alarming The government of the day shouts from the rooftops that it wants to build an inclusive society. The Constitution of India guarantees equal rights for

ONE MALAYSIA the Fatal Attraction of Fashionable PhrasesNajib in trouble LOST HIS CREDENTIAL TO RULE ONE MALAYSIA

Madras HC pulls up police over clash with advocates CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has sought an explanation from the city police chief on the February 19 police-lawyers clash and said it could

initiate contempt proceeding on the matter. ( Watch )

A Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice (ACJ), S J Mukhopadhaya and Justices V Dhanapalan and K Chandru, which held a special sitting yesterday asked the city police chief on whose authority the security personnel entered the court and said contempt proceedings could be initiated after ascertaining specific details of those instrumental in the matter.

The judges directed Chennai police commissioner and the joint commissioner (North) to file a report as to under whose authority they entered the High Court premises to arrest certain accused (in connection with the attack on Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy)and at whose instance an order was issued to police and the Swift Action Force to lathicharge.

In 2011, trial to take three years not 15?NEW DELHI: In a move to end the "once a litigant always a litigant" curse, the Centre is examining the first draft of a blueprint that promises

to reduce the average pendency of a case from 15 years at present to a mere three years over the next two years.

The ambitious legal reforms will look to setting a certain time-frame for a trial court to deal with a case and could also look at streamlining the appeals process. The reforms are expected to significantly change the lives of nearly 10 crore litigants involved one way or another in 2.6 crore cases some of which can drag on for decades.

With trials often being a labyrinthine process with numerous adjournments, law minister M Veerappa Moily had asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati and Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam to use their experience in judiciary to suggest a practical ready-to-use plan of action to help the common litigant who is often deterred from approaching the courts for fear of long pendency.

The first draft of the blueprint for shrinking the litigation time to just three years, prepared by the two top law officers, was recently handed over to the law minister. This draft is expected to form the agenda of national consulation on judicial reforms, scheduled for end-August.

An overall improvement of the justice delivery mechanism would follow if the suggested reform is implemented, official sources said. They explained that once the drastic reduction in the life of a trial court docket happens, it would unburden 16,000-odd judges of a huge pendency allowing them to give more meaning to the term "justice".

In addition, it would relieve the pressure on jails, overcrowded with lakhs of undertrials, to help improve facilities as they would have to cater to a lesser number of inmates, official sources said.

The Manmohan Singh government, in its second term, has stressed judicial reforms as a focal point. Even in the past, reforms have often been a talking point with previous regimes which seldom had the desire or the willingness to prod the judiciary into accepting reforms given the fact that courts are seen to be armed with public trust.

With cases of jusicial misconduct also emerging, the law ministry has moved to including the judiciary within the ambit of a law requiring judges to declare their assets.

After the Judges Assets Bill, Moily further opened the reform bag and intiated the groundwork for the Judicial Accountability Bill, which could provide a mechanism to rein in errant judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court.

But, the pendency of 2.6 crore cases in the trial courts directly affecting 10 crore people and their family members, virtually egged the law minister to give priority to ground level reforms in the judiciary.

Not Above The LawAbhinav Chandrachud7 The release of the film Desh Drohi has signified a momentous constitutional victory for the Indian citizen, and his right to express himself. The

Supreme Court a few months ago brushed aside claims that the movie's release would disturb public order owing to its references to north Indians, and affirmed the judgment of the Bombay high court.The decision has added to a steady stream of pro-free speech cases: Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy, a Marathi play based on the life of Gandhi's assassin; Chand Bujh Gaya, a movie based on the Gujarat riots; The Da Vinci Code, a movie based on Dan Brown's famous novel; M F Husain's nude paintings; and even smoking on screen in Indian films: all have been vindicated by an Indian constitutional court's orders.

While the court's speech discourse has remarkably protected individual rights to expression and self-realisation, it has shown a strange tendency to deviate from its liberal trajectory when "anti-judiciary" speech is involved.The old notion of 'scandalising the court', derived from England where it has allegedly not been used since 1931, continues to be used in India to supposedly protect the reputation of the judiciary, notwithstanding an amendment to contempt law in 2006. If "liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt", then this seeming judicial double standard casts considerable doubt on the freedom of speech and the legitimacy of constitutional courts in India.

In 1995, the Third Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals held that the delay in the Indian judicial system was so "profound and extreme" that a remedy before an Indian court was "clearly inadequate": an unusually strong censure of the Indian judicial system. Yet, Indian public discourse is constrained to maintain an untarnished image of the courts and judiciary, and nobody dares publicly condemn those responsible for the delay on a day-to-day basis, for fear of censure. The enormous judicial delay in India is further bolstered by hushed whispers of corruption in the Indian judiciary. Yet, judges' financial statements are not disclosed to the public. Does the judiciary form an undemocratic bubble in India's democracy?

Although Indian contempt law was amended in 2006 to make 'truth' a defence, even true statements about the judiciary can be punished, unless they were made in the 'public interest'. Further, in August 2007, despite pleading 'truth' as a defence, journalists from the Mid-Day newspaper were sentenced to imprisonment by the Delhi high court for "tarnishing" the image of the Supreme Court.

Free speech is meaningless unless it has space to breathe: false statements made honestly are equally a part of the freedom of speech. The Supreme Court of India has applied the famous New York Times vs Sullivan standard of American constitutional law against public officials. Accordingly, statements made against persons in the public eye cannot be considered defamatory unless they were made with "actual malice". The reason for this is simple: democratic governance mandates the strict scrutiny of public officials in the discharge of their official duties. However, a different standard seems to apply to the Indian judiciary, with whose honesty and integrity we are equally concerned.