A. Mohammed Mushtaq, judge, High Court of Kerala, has said that people should get justice in a timely manner. He was delivering the keynote address at the foundation stone laying of the Payyannur court complex here on Sunday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan laid the foundation stone. There is a perception among people that they do not get justice in a timely manner, he said.
“Judges and lawyers have lost the sense that the courts are for the people. We have judges sitting in ivory towers. It is sad,” he said.
When judges and lawyers do not intervene according to the people's problems and circumstances, the time when society rejects them is not remote, warned Justice Mushtaq. That is the lesson that Hyderabad offers, he added.
He further observed that the lawyers were once the correctionalists, they are liable to point out the degradations of the judiciary. But many are hesitant about it, he said.
The justice opined that the judiciary must change over time. Technology must be used efficiently. But in our country, including the clerks, they are taking a backward approach, he said and added that they try to stay the same old fashioned way.
He said that there is a lot of support from the government for reforms. But the system does not agree to change. The issue is between lawyers and judges. The virtual court system was an attempt at this change. By switching to online the effort was to reduce the work of the Clerk. But they couldn't even recognize it, he pointed. If we do not change from time to time, the time would reject us.
