Again guest lecture

Today’s lecture was on Criminal justice in India by Justice J. Chelameswar, the former Chief Justice of Gouhati High Court, former Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court and present Chief Justice of Kerela High Court. In India every year crime rate is escalating higher and higher but why criminal justice is deteriorating? Why more acquittals and why less convictions? For this he pointed our number of deficiencies in the concerned agencies like investigating agencies, officers and so on.

According to him lack of advanced method of investigation and still following the out dated method of investigation by investigating officers and investigating agencies. Another one is lack of officer’s enough specialization and qualified skill on their job like in investigations.

He said that another reason for low rate of conviction could be because of liberal pardoning power which most of the time are diluted by politics. Further he also said that lack of faith on judiciary by the people at large. People want every suspect to be convicted but they don’t realize repercussions behind if every suspect is going to be convicted. They also don’t know that suspect can be convicted only the evidence produced before the court proved beyond all reasonable doubt. He cited various examples how people react if suspects are let free. He said that most prosecutors lack skill and their appointment most of the time are political orientated rather than a skill and knowledge oriented.

Finally he concluded with pointing out some defects in sentencing after conviction. He said most of other countries life imprisonment means for life but in Indian life imprisonment in theory is for life but in practice maximum term is fourteen years which most of time convicts rarely gets even maximum terms of fourteen years. So this is also a contributing factor for going up the scale of crime rate, he said.

Guest lectures

Lately I have been engaged so tightly on series of submissions and this delayed my update on this record of lectures. It‘s been even a week since we had couple of lectures. Still then let me shed out whatever is left out in my memory. First lecture was by Justice M.N. Rao . His lecture was on “Religion through the lens of law: Neutrality of state secularization” .His lecture was so lengthy it lasted almost two hours. He said his preparation of lecture runs to 150 pages. Let me try how much I have grasped it.

Once upon a time religion and law was one concept. Through religion, beliefs and faiths regulated the conduct of mankind when there was no proper codification of laws. But today world over has proper codification of laws which regulates conduct of all mankind. . He said religion is the matter of private domain which is the relationship between person and the god whereas law is the matter of public domain which is the relationship between people and the state. Today with change of time everything changes and more people are becoming secular and expose to diverse religions, so neutrality of sate is very important. Religion and state are always inter connected, he said. He said there is no state without religion, so every state has religion. State guarantees freedom of religion but he said it can be regulated by state through law. He cited various cases like where students refused to sing a nation anthem. He said every citizen has duty to respect nation anthem and national flag. Tomorrow if we become the prime minster we cannot refuse to take oath under nation flag and anthem as against our religion. So every citizen has duty to respect the same.

Finally he concluded that every person has right to freedom of faith but practice of that faith can be regulated by state through law.

Another lecture was on 19/2/2011 by former judge of the Indian Supreme Court, Former Chief Justice of AP High Court, Justice U.C Benerjee. His lecture was on sustainable development. The moment I saw this topic it reminded me of our unique philosophy, GNH as this being one of the pillars of GNH. He stressed mainly on preservation of nature, ecological balance, biodiversity, global warming, climate change, etc. Internationally this concept was first appeared in Bretten Wood’s Report then in Rio Conferernce, 1992. But he said to India he was the first judge to introduce this concept in Indian jurisprudence. He introduced this concept in Kolkata Wet Land case in 1993 where he said that economic development should be with the ecological balance. He said with globalization and growth of population economic development of every nation is very important but that should be without compromising the ecological balance. Economic development with the ecological balance is what he wants. He cited various examples of effect of climate change due to global warming. He also cited various industrialized nations which are without fresh air. So he time and again in the course of his lecture reminded that economic development with the ecological balance not with the cost of ecological balance.

Lecture by AP Governor

Today we had a guest lecture on ‘National Security; The Challenging Paradigm by Shri E.S. L Narasimhan, the governor of Andhra Pradesh. He harangued  on why and how the  national security has become a challenge over the years.

The concept of national security has undergone a drastic change  today. It no more confines to protection of borders from external agression by arm forces, he said.

He went on to mention about allegation of violation of human rights by police on suppression of criminals for larger public interest. He also talked about suspension of human rights during exigency.

He eloquently and spontaneously gave a mind blowing lecture which I felt it was worth attending it. But unfortunately despite this I having sited at the back could not capture all valuable points because of which I’m not able to produce whole thing in detail here, just producing important headings whatever little I could recollect. More over our college three day gala got over yesterday only and that hang over left me quite sleepy throughout the lecture. Still then I enjoyed.

Lecture by a judge of the Supreme Court of India

Today we were privileged to have Justice Burnly in our University to give a talk on very important theme, “The Opportunities and Future Prospects of Law Graduates”. He is presently a judge in the Supreme Court of India. He was accompanied by two judges of Andhra Pradesh High Court.
He briefed how lawyers play a tremendous role in reconstruction of the society and also the importance of legal profession in today’s epoch. He said legal profession has been playing high-flying role since very long time back. He went on to say that all past imminent leaders were lawyers and even many leaders today are rooted from legal profession. Pratima Patel, the President of India, was a lawyer pre to her present post. He named many other leaders who were lawyers.

So he congratulated all students for making the right choice at first place to study the law. But making another choice after graduation is more important, he said. For this, he talked on kind of working environment the lawyers are subjected to in corporate sectors, NGOs, lawfirms, and Judiciary. He being a judge and working under judiciary he narrated encouraging incidences that he has encountered in his last 19 years service in the judiciary. He said unlike in corporate sectors in judiciary the works the judicial officers get to do would not become monotonous for they get to deal new facts every new day. He related this to his friend. Though his friend’s salary was colossal but still then he regretted for joining the company.
Most Indian law graduates prefer to join only in corporate sectors and law firms and they barely prefer to work in the judiciary either because of Judicial Service Exam or peanut salary. At the end of the day what matters is money so doubtlessly main rationale I could conclude for baking off could be definitely because of peanut salary. Same is the case with our Bhutanese Judiciary, peanut salary for judicial officers. Despite this, lawyers still prefer judiciary owing to the fact that Judiciary confers a unique title ‘Dasho with long sword and green scarf’ to every judge right from assistant judge. So more scope to fetch that title in long run if they join judiciary.
 Unlike India in Bhutan despite Judicial Service Act already in place until now we don’t have Judicial Service Exam.  I guess the day is not far for Judicial Exam to be in place but  lets not hope for at least next few years, let my chance come first huh!!!!

Again guest lecture

Today also we had guest lecture on two different topics, “Government liability” by Prof. Lewis N, Klar from Canada and “Anti-corruption laws” by Dr. Andrew Brady Spalding from U.S. A
Prof. Lewis talked more of tortious liability of government and narrated few Canadian cases where government was sued for negligence in executing the policies and decisions not for negligence in framing of policies. He also compared Canadian tort law and Indian tort law. To this, he said that there is not much difference he could make out and more or less both are on same track for common law in place for both the countries.

Prof. Andrew’s lecture was centered on the FCPA(Foreign Corrupt Practice Act), 1977 and corruption in international business. He briefed on FCPA and consequences of violation of FCPA, how US companies were fined for bribing the foreign companies. He said that companies were fined thrice the profit they received from bribe and owing to which Companies wondered whether their companies would sustain paying this much fine? Companies also left in dilemma whether they can afford to do business with corruption prone countries?

Except few, most trans-national business takes place with under table business, so certainly  with increment of enforcement of FCPA the foreign investment will dwindle in bribery prone countries, said the Prof. Andrew.

FCPA is applicable to only US entities and and non US entities in the territory of the United States.

Lecture on different themes

This semester we are having series of lectures on different issues and today again we had lecture on three different themes, “Globalization of Legal Education and Legal Profession” by Prof. C. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, O.P Jindal Global University and Dean, Jindal Global Law School, “Structural and Substantive Development in the U.S. Supreme Court by Prof. Peter H. Schuck , Professor of Law, Yale Law School, and “Global Research and Internship Programs” by Prof. Jonathan A.Burton-Macleod, Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean(Research) Assistant Director, Centre for Global Governance and Policy.
Since 2009 Prof Raj Kumar has given more than 200 talks on this theme in different law Colleges and Universities all over India. He highlighted the importance of studying the law and possessing the quality legal profession. He said that post independence period most Indians’ option was medicine and engineering and law was given the last option. But legal professionals play immense role in national building and social engineering. Many greater leaders were rooted from legal profession like Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer and many other leaders were lawyers.
The society to be a rule of law society there should have good chunk of legal professionals. To have good chunk of legal professionals people should have interest to study the law and know the law. Having interest itself is not enough if there is dearth of supporting mechanism, so there should be other mechanism like proper and quality law universities and professors in it.
One of the means to ensure quality of legal education is through establishment of National Law Schools beside private law schools. He said, this is a revolutionary step to upgrade the quality which is already in progress and of 913 law schools in India 13 are already National Law Schools.
How many teachers in Law Colleges and Universities are by choice and interest?, he asked. He said that many law teachers are not by choice but they joined teaching because they did not get other jobs. So to ensure quality legal profession and education there should have quality teachers which their option must be by choice and interest not by unemployment compulsion. Further he said that to globalize legal education students should strive to do global research.
Prof. Peter talked on the developments happened to U.S Supreme Court. In process he compared Indian Supreme Court and US Supreme Court. He said that unlike Indian Supreme Court before US Federal Supreme Court there is less number of cases. In US there is Supreme Court in every state (50 State and unlike Indian judges US judges cannot become politician once they resigned.
Prof. Jonathan talked on internship programs offered by his organization. He said interested can apply and experience it. He also shared his experience on various internships he carried out in different countries.

Lecture on transparancy in use of Electronic Voting Machines(15th February, 2010)

 Unlike most of the other countries’ democracy the Bhutanese democracy was born only after invention of EVMs which has aided to pull through first ever Bhutanese parliament election process very easily and successfully. But did Bhutan realize EVMs are tamperable? Certainly!, No body might have thought about this fact for many saw for the first time and used it for first time as well ,  rather everybody’s thought was driven to advantages track only .
Like many Bhutanese folks I too did not know about this fact not latter than recently when two persons, Till Dr. Jaegar from Germany, a specialist in Copyright and Media law who had won a judicial verdict against EVMs from German Supreme Court and V.V. Rao, an activist in fighting for transparency and accountability in Indian EMVs, came to our University to harangue on transparency in use of EVMs.
Both of them said that though the use of EVMs, unlike paper ballot, economies the time required for counting the votes and many other malpractices related to elections, however, EMVs being man made machines, are tamperable. They also said that they evidenced and demonstrated how it is tamperable.
Dr, Till Jaegar challenged before Germany Supreme Court and won the verdict against use of EVMs and accordingly German Supreme Court banned the use of EVMs in German elections.
V.V. Rao who has observed malfunctioning of EVMs in the last Indian Parliament elections filed PL before Indian Supreme Court. He said that before filing PIL he conducted through survey on use of EVMs and got similar results from all places that there is something wrong with use of EVMs. He also said that EVMs do not assure whether the vote is counted against the person whom voters have voted? or Neither there is proof that vote is counted to candidate against whom voters have voted?.
V.V. Rao was directed by Supreme Court to deal with matter with Election Commission of India (ECI) but despite his consistent effort to convince the Election Commission that EVMs are tamperable the ECI did not allow them even to demonstrate fully how EVMs are tamperable rather ECI said that EVMs cannot be tampered.
Whether to use EVMs in Indian elections is still in pipe line as the matter is still pending but what about to our Bhutanese elections. Though we have passed through first parliament election with use of these EVMs successfully, but would Bhutan be able to use EVMs through out the life of Bhutanese democracy? who knows the day may come to face Germans' fate also, as Bhutanese EVMs are not different from the ones used by Germans and Indians.Anway lets wait and see in the next elections till democracy subsists.