The Hindu : Other States / Rajasthan News : Laws should ensure justice: Kalam

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Friday, Dec 17, 2004

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Laws should ensure justice: Kalam

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, DEC. 16. The President, A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, has asked the legal community to be the pioneers of evolution of nobility in justice. The judicial system should change as per the need of the times. The laws need not be a static body of rules but can be an organic body of principles capable of growth and evolution, he said.

Addressing students of the National Law University at Jodhpur on Wednesday, Dr.Kalam said for a universal acceptance any law must rest on the premise of common welfare. The test of any legal framework depended on its capacity and efficacy to ensure social, economic and political justice for an individual not only in his individual capacity but also as a member of a nation or as a member of the global community, he said.

Dr. Kalam, who chose to speak on the topic, "Legal system for national development'' asked the lawyers to think about the leadership they would provide to the country for its transformation to a developed nation by the year 2020. "The rate of change of national development is directly proportional to the functional efficiency of the legal system and the quality of judgment,'' he observed.

The growing complexities in the social system along with the process of industrialization, surge in population and the resultant increase in scarcity of natural resources are proving a new challenge for the legal system in the country, the President noted. The judiciary could make use of the tools of information and communication technology (ICT) for the quick disposal of cases, he noted. "Pending cases in various courts lead to enormous mental stress, agony, hatred, loss of transparency and huge loss of earning and wastage of manpower and delay in the process of national development,'' Dr.Kalam said. Legal monitoring and revitalizing village panchayat system through electronic connectivity to the courts by using ICT would create human rights awareness among the common public.

The country's local and individualized interests would have to be harmonized within the larger pluralistic order so as to give primacy to human rights. "It is necessary to work towards Unity of Minds,'' he said. Dr.Kalam said the increasing intolerance for views of others and increasing contempt about ways of lives of others or their religions or the expression of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context.

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