Bread for the Poor: Access to Justice and the Rights of the Needy in India
Bread for the Poor: Access to Justice and the Rights of the Needy in India
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为穷人提供面包：印度穷人诉诸司法的机会和权利
DOI：
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发表时间：
2005
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Jayanth K. Krishnan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Galanter;Jayanth K. Krishnan
印度理所当然地因实现了繁荣的宪法秩序而受到称赞，它由一个有创造力和积极进取的司法机构主持，有一个熟练的律师协会，得到了国家的支持和公众的珍视。与此同时，普通印度人可能会去寻求补救和保护的法院和法庭，被拖延、成本和无效等巨大问题所困扰。潜在用户避免上法庭；尽管印度人长期以来以好打官司著称，但现有证据表明，印度人使用法庭的比例很低，而且这一比例似乎正在下降。尽管如此，法院仍然陷入僵局。人们普遍认为，在印度诉诸司法需要进行改革，使普通人能够援引法律的补救和保护措施。在这项研究中，我们着重介绍了20年前推出的一个创新论坛，它得到了政府和司法机构的大力支持，并得到了有影响力的精英们的认可和推动，认为它是一个有前途的诉诸司法的途径。这个论坛就是Lok Adalat，字面意思是人民法院，顾名思义，它被宣传为与州法院具有不同的来源和特征。事实上，Lok Adalat是国家的产物，但由于假装它不是，它值得在另一个非国家司法系统的名义下进行审查。我们怀疑，这类居民中的一些人与国家有着类似的矛盾关系。这一条将以下列方式进行：第一部分叙述了独立后建立以乡村为基础的法院的运动，这是扩大公众诉诸司法的一个关键方法。在讨论了这场运动遇到的挫折之后，我们对比了紧急状态时期(1975-1977)之后出现的自上而下的公益诉讼方法。在第二部分中，我们侧重于从1980年代开始，法官和政治家如何回到以土著的、传统的方式在基层解决争端的迷人想法。在此期间，Lok Adalat的概念开始获得巨大的势头，我们讨论了为什么有这么多人支持在印度各地扩大这一替代争端机构的原因。在第三部分中，我们介绍了我们对几种不同类型的Lok Adalat的初步观察结果。我们的结论是，这个论坛为与会者提供了快速、公平和协商的正义的说法需要认真重新考虑。
India is rightly acclaimed for achieving a flourishing constitutional order, presided over by an inventive and activist judiciary, aided by a proficient bar, supported by the state and cherished by the public. At the same time, the courts, and tribunals where ordinary Indians might go for remedy and protection, are beset with massive problems of delay, cost, and ineffectiveness. Potential users avoid the courts; in spite of a longstanding reputation for litigiousness, existing evidence suggests that Indians avail themselves of the courts at a low rate, and the rate appears to be falling. Still, the courts remain gridlocked. There is wide agreement that access to justice in India requires reforms that would enable ordinary people to invoke the remedies and protections of the law. In this study we focus on an innovative forum, introduced just twenty years ago, which has enjoyed substantial governmental and judicial support and is endorsed and promoted, indeed given pride of place by influential elites, as a promising avenue of access to justice. This forum is the Lok Adalat, literally people's court, and as the name suggests it is promoted as having a different source and character than the courts of the state. In fact, the Lok Adalat is a creature of the state, but because of the pretension that it is not, it deserves examination under the rubric of an alternative, non-state justice system. We suspect that a number of the inhabitants of that category bear a similar ambivalent relationship to the state. This Article will proceed in the following manner: Part I recounts the post-Independence movement to establish village-based courts as a key method of enlarging public access to justice. After discussing the setbacks this movement encountered, we contrast the top-down public interest litigation approach that emerged in the wake of the Emergency period (1975-1977). In Part II we focus on how, beginning in the 1980s, judges and politicians returned to the captivating idea of settling disputes in an indigenous, traditional manner at the grassroots level. During this time, the concept of the Lok Adalat started gaining significant momentum, and we discuss the reasons why so many supported expanding this alternative dispute institution throughout India. In Part III we present findings from our preliminary observations of several different types of Lok Adalats. We conclude that the claim that this forum offers participants speedy, fair, and deliberative justice needs serious reconsideration.