Source: ndtv.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chennai: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n President Ram Nath Kovind Friday \nadvocated translating high courts’ judgements into vernacular languages \nso that people are able to understand them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Over the years, our \nunderstanding of law and its applications has become larger and \nsophisticated,” he said addressing a special convocation of the \nstate-run Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, President \nKovind asked, if enough attention was being paid to issues of legal \ninfrastructure and access to justice, especially for ordinary citizens \nand added that there was a need to enhance legal literacy and simplify \nthe legal rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is important to not only take justice to the \npeople, but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a \nlanguage they know. Perhaps, a system could be evolved whereby certified\n translated copies of judgments are made available by high courts in \nlocal or regional language,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president recalled that \nhe had put forth this suggestion in October 2017 while addressing the \nvaledictory of the diamond jubilee celebration of the Kerala High Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later\n when he visited Chhattisgarh, he had discussed the same idea with the \nthen Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court Justice T B \nRadhakrishnan, now Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And \nwithin a few days, the Chhattisgarh High Court implemented the \nsuggestion, following which litigants were able to avail translated \ncopies of its judgments in Hindi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I am happy to learn that some \nother high courts have also responded to the suggestion positively. The \nlanguage of certified copies could be Malayalam in the Kerala High Court\n or Tamil in the Madras High Court, as the case may be,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Political parties in Tamil Nadu have for long been clamouring for Tamil as a court language in the Madras High Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Batting for equal access to law for poor and disapproving<\/p>\n\n\n\n abuse\n of adjournments, the president said the need to make the provision of \njustice speedier and affordable places a great responsibility on the \nlawyer community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our legal \nsystem has a reputation for being expensive and prone to delays. There \nare some who tend to use and abuse the instrument of adjournments as a \ntactic to slow down proceedings, rather than a response to a genuine \nemergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This makes obtaining justice costly for the litigant. \nIt would be a travesty of our republican ethic if a poor person did not \nget the same access to the law as a rich person,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President\n Kovind congratulated Justice P Sathasivam (Governor of Kerala and \nformer chief justice, Supreme Court), Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde \n(judge, Supreme Court) and Justice V K Tahilramani (Chief Justice, \nMadras High Court) who were conferred LL D (Honoris Causa) degrees by \nthe varsity for their distinguished services to law and justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\n am told that this is the first time in the country that a university is\n conferring LL D degrees on three jurists on the same occasion,” he \nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chief Minister K Palaniswami, greeting the three jurists on \nbeing conferred the degree of doctor of law, said as per the \nConstitutional scheme of things, the four pillars of democracy – \njudiciary, executive, legislature and the press – should function \nindependently within their respective spheres and only then people could\n live happily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I am very happy to say that in Tamil Nadu, these four organs are functioning independently,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palaniswami\n urged the judiciary and judges to take appropriate steps to realise the\n vision of ”Amma” (former chief minister J Jayalalithaa), who had said\n it was the collective responsibility of all to ensure that all the \nbenefits of law reach the poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state-run law varsity was providing quality legal<\/p>\n\n\n\n education at a very low cost in Asia, he said and listed out his government”s initiatives for the development of legal education in Tamil Nadu, which included sanctioning three more law colleges this year. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Law Minister CV Shanmugam and Madras High Court judges took part.<\/p>\n