The first State Convention of All India Lawyers Union, Himachal chapter was held here on Saturday. Lawyers from all over the hill state participated and deliberated on various issues concerning the demands of advocates, appointments of judges, corruption in judiciary and reinforcing of effective justice delivery system in the current neo-liberal, socio economic atmosphere.
Speaking in the inaugural session Senior Supreme Court advocate Som Dutt Sharma said a new interpretation of law has come up in the era of neo-liberalism and globalization. He said the demand of All India Lawyers Union (AILU) to establish a national judicial commission has been brushed aside by the two major political dispensations of the country. The main parties who are calling the shots and making judicial appointments are having their own nominees owing allegiance to the respective ideologies.
Mr. Sharma who is the national secretary of AILU said the entire edifice of our judicial system is feudal and requires a complete restructuring of the justice delivery system. Our judicial system is not an outcome of a method developed by a sovereign republic but a decayed left over of a colonial power that had ruled us for more than 200 years, he said. Calling the judicial system as highly centralized he said, the need of the hour is to decentralize it by introducing even the mother tongue as the language of the courts and reducing the pendency of cases and appointing more and more judicial officers.
He appealed to the young lawyers of AILU to not just let the legal system become a mere service sector catering to the capitalist classes. Instead, he said, they should stand firm and fight for the poor and weak at the time of any moral and legal crises.
Justice Rajeev Sharma of the Himachal High Court and other senior lawyers also addressed the gathering of local advocates and law students.
