India should Privatize its Courts
Have you ever had the bad experience of facing a small, medium, or big court case in India? If not, keep reading. Attending a court case in India is one of the worst possible experiences that will drain you mentally, physically, and financially. The simple reason for this is that all the courts are operated by the government. In other words, they are 100% government departments with their own lethargic processes and there are no private alternatives. As someone who has endured three tiresome court cases over the last twenty years (each case spanning 4–7 years) I strongly believe it’s time to privatize our courts for several types of cases. Though the legal cabal accustomed to its lethargy will express shock or concern about how courts can be privatized look at these reasons and decide for yourself.
The Experience — A visit to the court to attend a case or get some paper is a suffocating and painful experience. This is because our courts are the most inefficient, lethargic, paper, time, and money-wasting institution in India but also have the highest self-congratulation. There is no such thing as consumer or customer satisfaction type of measures seen anywhere. No clear directions, no help desk, overcrowded counters, no one to help (other than fleecing touts), overcrowded with all types of cases, overcrowded parking, canteens, etc.
The Timings — They start at 10:00, begin at 11, close by 1:00, restart by 2:00, close by 4:30, have summer holidays, etc. As some legal experts once said, our Indian courts still follow the tradition of summer vacations like in colonial times when judges had enough time to travel back and forth from their home town back in the UK. This tradition is being followed even now when there are 3 crores or more cases pending. On average our courts work for less than 200 days which is less when compared to all other government organizations.
Overload for Judges — Our judges handle 20 to 60 cases in a day. Though they spend only a few hours in the court hall, they have to spend a lot of time in the background reading badly written case files, illegible handwriting, prehistoric papers, writing lengthy judgements, etc. Such a workload can be extremely physically, emotionally, and mentally tiring leading to health and corruption problems. Secondly, just increasing their salary and giving better perks won’t reduce the mental strain if the workload is not balanced.
Lengthy Judgements — Our judges also have the bad habit of writing a hundred-page judgement when ten pages or even one page will be sufficient. Secondly, they also have this habit of writing the judgements in complicated English with double negatives, (example — it’s not uncommon to find pickpockets in this city), etc., that even a Master’s degree holder in English will find difficult to understand. Imagine the amount of time needed to add thousands of unnecessary words/sentences and stretch judgements to hundreds of pages.
Overload for Lawyers — It’s a common misconception that all lawyers make tons of money. But this is a wrong assumption. Only a small percentage of high-profile lawyers in the political and celebrity areas make a lot of money charging several lakhs per appearance. But a large percentage of lawyers depend only on erratic payments by clients and cases that stretch to years. Even lawyers endure the same stress and risks as judges dealing with rubbish clients who expect them to somehow win cases when the clients themselves know that they are liars and guilty.
Adjournment — This is probably unique to our courts and a very frustrating and time-wasting experience. I have seen judges suddenly adjourn the case even when both parties are present in the hall and ready to answer questions, settle for a judgement, compromise, etc. But, the judge will abruptly adjourn with no valid reasons causing frustration to everyone.
Now let us look at some solutions,
The above overload and stress cannot continue forever and minor efficiency improvements do not solve anything. Our courts need a drastic overhaul and extensive privatization. Though many will express shock or concern about how courts can be privatized look at these reasons.
All types of courts need not be privatized. Let government courts continue to handle mega cases and criminal cases like terrorism, murders, law and order issues, corruption, political cases, etc. Private courts can handle a specific set of court cases. For example, we can start with non-criminal cases like homeowner and tenant issues, insurance claim cases, non-fatal vehicle accidents, and dozens of other petty and straightforward cases that are clogging our judiciary for decades.
Private courts will anyway have to follow the exact laws, interpretations, past judgements in similar cases, and judicial processes that the government creates and not create their own laws. The only difference will be speed, efficiency, reporting, reduce paper, online services, computerization, etc. Private companies will always strive to simplify processes, reduce paper, do continuous improvement, etc., keeping the customer in mind. Secondly, private courts can also work for longer hours and 365 days like we see many private services. Now, if litigants are still not satisfied with private court judgements they are always free to approach government courts.
The reason for lethargy in our courts is there are no alternatives. Litigants have no other options to get justice. But if better alternatives are available then people will not touch government courts with a barge pole. Secondly, people nowadays will gladly pay more to get service fast and a large percentage will switch to private courts as plenty of people can afford it. This can drastically reduce the workload on government courts and litigants can get faster service and justice in private courts.
Just look around. We have private hospitals, airlines, couriers, transport, telecom, security services, internet, gas connections, schools, colleges, cable TV channels, electricity, water, etc. Practically everything is privatized and countless people are happily using their services. We have private hospitals that decide life and death issues. We have private banks and financial institutions where we invest all our money. So, why not some private courts for handling trivial and non-criminal cases? People will happily opt for private courts if they get faster judgements. Besides, lawyers and judges will make more money, solve more cases per month, reduce cases rotting in the government courts, simplify processes, eliminate bogus cases, etc. So, it’s a Win-Win for all.
~ 🤵 About the Author — Thejendra Sreenivas was a Technology Manager in the IT industry for nearly 30 years. He is now an Author and Book Publishing Coach and helps authors to Self-Publish their books Worldwide on Amazon and Non-Amazon retailers. He has written 30+ books on various topics. Visit his online cave — www.thejendra.com for more details.
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