Proposal for a smarter judicial system

Ideally, a proper functioning democracy should have three independent branches - the executive, legislative and judicial branch. This ain't false for our country. Our constitution has provision for having all three of these branches to be constituted independently. This article aims to formulate a process to make the judicial branch more effective and amicable to the common man.

While doctors continue to dominate the highest paid jobs in the US, the profession immediately following is that of the legal practitioners. According to Forbes, 12 out of 20 companies which offer the best compensation and perks are legal firms. This even beats the best tech companies. It is hard to corroborate that the same holds true for our country where a supreme court judge is hesitant to declare his assets. And there has been several such similar cases for the lesser state-level High Court judges. Are lawyers more creative or intelligent than a scientist or an artist ? You may call me biased but the will not shrug away if I reply a point blank "no". I would have no objection to paying them the maximum remuneration and allowing them the premiere privileges if their role was to establish the "truth". But it isn't. They simply prove what their client asks them to do. So, if a corrupt person employs a lawyer, "falsehood" might well be established. Since we are all equal under the blindfolded Lady Justice, its time we re-look at the judicial system.

So, why are lawyers paid more ?

They know certain facts about the constitution, rights of people, the Indian Penal Code, legal implications, statutory notifications and certain processes in practice that we do not. They also have access to updates to these acts, rules and regulations. We are paying because we consider them experts on the subject matter - a matter thats in many cases is not in line with the standard way of an innocent life but at the whim of the legislative branch. However, I am not questioning the constitution. An example will clarify. Few years back, the factory act mandated that in a factory-floor where several people are working, the company should arrange for a Indian-style matki for storing water. Times changed and new technology replaced it with the modern day water purifiers and
coolers. A certain company, naively, installed such a modern water cooler only to pay a fine during inspection since the age old matki was not to be found. I am not even asking to change such rules. They happen in their due course. The point of this reform is information accessibility. The company could have avoided this if it knew of such a rule and kept a matki for its namesake. At least, companies are organized and can afford a legal advisor. But most of us find it
extremely difficult to read through a legal document which may be land or house deed and end up paying thousands to lawyers. Are we stupid ? No. How are you supposed to read a legal document whose each individual statements run into several pages resembling a paragraph; without proper sentence segmentation or even a punctuation mark. There-in-after, who-so-ever, here-in-with. I dream about a society when poets will write agreements. But that seems to be Utopian. Lets turn our attention on what can be done to make our lives easier.

The official language of India is Hindi with secondary emphasis on English. States in India can legislate their own official languages. However, neither the Constitution of India, nor any Indian law defines any national language. But there are in fact 17 major Indian languages and we have examples of the state executive branches use these. So unofficially we have 17 official languages. However the constitution is available in English and Hindi only. Some people have been prudent enough to publish it on the internet. And some benevolent souls have done the hard work of translation portions of the Indian law to regional languages. Thats it ! It still continues to be like the holy grail to the common man.

Usage of the internet is ever rising. People are also using various devices to access the same information. The first part of the proposal is to start the process of translating all laws especially the ones related to public affairs in each and every of the 17 languages. This can be a daunting task. However we have seen extraordinary results in the field of translation using phonetics and statistical techniques. The scope of this article is not discovering those techniques but there are indeed established ones. However such sensitive information should not be left to the machines only. It should consist of a three stage process in which the machine does the first level translation. It is reviewed by a human from a non-legal background. In this way, we have laws written in the common language and not borrowed from Elizabethan style of English. Finally, it is vetted by the court appointed reviewer. Even if a verbatim translation isn't possible, we can compare this to a reference to the original text, like Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare". We may not get the exact dialogues but grasp the central point.

Next step of the process is to put all this information online which can be viewed from all popular devices like the personal computer, mobile phones and easy-to-use kiosks at public places.

The final step is to make this information search-able. There is no shortage of search competencies in the market. Companies are able to search trillion bytes of data at the fall of an eye-lid. Because the above data will be of no use if it can't be searched easily. For e.g. a person willing to know the legal processes and laws pertaining to the transfer of shares to his family member can look at the relevant laws only. Someone interested in registration of his newly bought house searches for that part only and so on. Since the uneducated mass bear most of the brunt of the legal machinery, another good to have feature is voice based search. However, technology on this front is immature and can be easily replaced by a semi-manual call center. And I am optimistic there will be many among us who will be helping out those who can't read or write totally free of cost.

The whole idea of the judicial machinery making unfair money by misleading and harassing clients is because of the information asymmetry. The above proposition breaks this disparity. Anyone who needs to interact with the judicial branch can arm themselves with enough information before proceeding. The process of justice can be expedited. In many case people realize after a few sittings of the bench that a case wasn't possible in the first place. The lawyer persuaded them to press a case. All these can be avoided. This doesn't mean that lawyers will run out of business. Did open source software make commercial product development companies go bankrupt ? It made them stronger. Lawyers can graduate to the same social prestige as that of a teacher and doctor.

(Another ambitious second phase is to do the same thing for all recorded court proceedings. But this tool will benefit the lawyers more than the average person. So I leave it to them to plan it out.)

A lawyer makes money at the cost of someone's misery. It is a very sensitive profession and ethical standards aren't maintained always. Hence shifting the knowledge base to the common man makes them more accountable. And we regain the trust in our judiciary.

If India can fight for the Lokpal Bill which empower the civil society in the judicial process, such a system will benefit us even more. We do not need to have heavyweight funding for this project. Just deduct hundred rupees per month for the first five years payable as part of the income tax which can be reduced to thirty rupees per month after the system is ready. These numbers may be revised but the point is clear.