Poor man’s pal

The pay of the 93 attorneys appointed by the court — from the Supreme Court to the district level — to fight on behalf of the litigants too poor to hire lawyers on their own is shamefully low, even for a part-time job. For half a century, the practice has existed of hiring legal practitioners, called appointed attorneys in the court circles, on contract for up to two years. There are two categories of them — the pleaders who are required to possess no more than a Proficiency Certificate in Law get only Rs. 2, 000 per month and the advocates who have to possess a Bachelor’s degree in Law, only Rs. 2, 500. This, too, after their salary increase of Rs. 500 in January.

These attorneys are recognised as civil servants and get much less than even the basic salary of a peon, that stands at Rs. 3, 700 per month. And they are supposed to be defending the rights of the poor people in all three tiers of the judiciary while private practitioners charging individually for the cases make an incredibly high income, not to talk of those whose monthly pickings run to lakhs of rupees.This raises several questions. One is that though the government may say it has looked after the interests of the poor litigants, in practice it amounts to doing so only for the sake of form. On such a salary, who would be willing to take a job other than fresh, often hard-pressed, graduates with just a licence in hand to plead? When they are just completing their ‘internship’ their contract lapses, bringing in a new crop of young people barely out of college. It is also questionable that these attorneys can do full justice to the cases they take up, with experienced, high-charging lawyers arrayed on the other side of the dock. It is also time a study was made of the success rate of the ‘poor cases’ undertaken under the government’s free legal service. But, whether the government may decide to appoint experienced or raw people as attorneys, though the latter would clearly be preferable, the salaries must at least be respectable.

Even more galling is the fact that the Cabinet fixes or changes these salaries. Though the concept behind the system may not be a full-time one, the nature of the job undoubtedly is. For instance, an attorney at the Supreme Court is reported to have dealt with 160 cases in a year. The plight of the appointed attorneys also raises a moral question for the government: How can it expect others in society to honour the minimum wage principle while it itself metes out such an injustice, of all people to those supposed to defend the citizens’ rights. However, a silver lining for these hapless attorneys is a report prepared and recently submitted by a committee headed by apex court judge Anup Raj Sharma. The report recommends treating pleaders as section officers and advocates as under-secretaries. Besides, as the job is contractual, the attorneys are deprived of all the perks and facilities given to regular employees. Because of this it would not be unfair at all if these attorneys received a salary only slightly more than the basic pay of their confirmed counterparts.

Source: The Himalayan Times, May 7, 2007

Judicial morality

At a time when the judiciary is facing a drought of public faith and is struggling to clean its tarnished image in recent days, a morally questionable act of the Chief Justice (CJ) - appointment of his spouse to the post of section officer -- and an offence of the Supreme Court (SC) Registrar - use of a vehicle with an illegal number plate-- over a span of one week, have come out.
These acts by Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel and Registrar Dr Ram Krishna Timalsena, head of the judiciary and the chief of the apex court administration respectively, have disgraced and caused irreparable damage to the esteem of the institution of the judiciary and judicial system. These acts, have further eroded public faith on the judiciary, irrespective of the intention behind the acts.

The Post regards that both the posts deserve high respect and prestige from the public. But, at the same time, the positions demand a high standard of morality in what they do. A petty act subject to moral question, by figures like the CJ and Registrar is very damaging to an institution like the judiciary whose very foundation is public faith. Such damage is irreparable. So judges and officials of the judiciary should be responsible and careful to what they do/will do to ensure that their acts do not harm the institution.
Press has been reporting the morally questionable acts in the judiciary over the last three years. But such reports have been ignored by the people in the judiciary without realization of the far-reaching effects of such activities. And such individuals were never brought to justice, and thus impunity has been encouraged in the institution. For instance, the then Chief Justice Hari Prasad Sharma delivered a political speech at an international forum in 2005, which was a breach of the code of conduct for judges. But Sharma was never punished. This kind of impunity must end to make our judiciary a temple of justice which people revere.

History has recorded damaging activities, one after another, by people in the judiciary over the last three years. But the judiciary has failed to use every correction opportunity in the past. Our judiciary never learnt a lesson from the infamous Robinson scandal. It could have been used as an opportunity to correct the existing maladies in the judiciary. But that did not happen. Now the judiciary should realize that no one, but the people in the judiciary, are responsible for earning damage and disgrace to the institution. It is high time the judiciary end impunity of all sorts within itself and make the institution respectable and morally clean.