Chandigarh, Supreme Court Judge Surya Kant on Saturday emphasized that technology can break obstacles and bring legal aid to every citizen’s door and said that if it is contained inclusively, it can brid down in constant intervals in the judicial system.
Digital divide is very real, he said and said that “the task before us is not only to create a digital solution, but to ensure that these solutions are inclusive”.
Justice Kant was offering ‘Justice RC Lahoti Memorial Lecture’ at Manav Rachna University in Faridabad, Haryana, which is to resume legal aid in the digital age for inclusive justice in India. Given that Article 39A of the Constitution has asked the state to provide free legal aid to ensure that no citizen is denied justice due to economic or other disabled, he said that India is constitutionally for legal assistance in some of some of the countries.
“, Nevertheless, the truth is that our population is still facing malicious obstacles in reaching rural citizens, urban poor, women, children, persons with disabilities, the elderly still face malicious obstacles in reaching justice,” said Justice Kant.
He said that these can be the obstacles of awareness, geography, language, wealth, physical mobility or social stigma.
“Legal aid, as we have imagined it for decades, is often limited to the provision of free or subsidized legal representation,” he said.
“More than seven decades after independence, we should ask: is justice accessible to all? Movement workers, tribal communities, daily wage earnings, families abandoned by families, the undertriery prisoner remains the legal system far and unknowingly,” he said.
Justice Kant said that not only poverty, gender, caste, and now, access to digital exclusion is also disrupted.
Citing his recent visit to Srinagar for the launch of some National Legal Services Authority schemes, he said that a young tribal boy has continued to face difficulties to his community despite many schemes and welfare measures.
“What they said have been with me: All welfare schemes will remain ineffective until tribal families live in livelihood so that they can send their children to school and get basic education that can qualify for their benefits like employment reservation.
“His words were a poignant reminder that justice and welfare should start with basic things, without which the empowerment remains incomplete,” he said.
Justice Kant said that the current framework mainly faces the boundaries inherent in front of service distribution in brick-and-mortar models and in this context, Digital Revolution offers a compelling opportunity.
Justice Kant said that the digital age has changed how we live, communicate, learn and interact with institutions. He said, “Technology is not a panacea, but it is an extraordinary environment. India today has about 1.2 billion mobile connections, and about 85.5 percent of the houses have at least one smartphone,” he said.
Nevertheless, access to justice remains largely analog, he said that the courts are online, laws are also digital, but quality legal aid of quality has yet fallen down to the last person in the line.
“Digital divide has become a new face of inequality. But this opportunity lies here. With the right vision and safety measures, technology can break geographical obstacles, democratization of legal awareness, and bring legal aid to the door, or bring every citizen’s palm.
“If it is exploited thinking and consolidated, it can bridge the constant interval in our justice system,” he said.
Given that in the country, the penetration of mobile phones cross the computers equipped with the Internet, he said that the legal literacy programs of Nalsa should be recurred for the digital age.
Imagine the “Ek Nalasa Saathi ‘mobile application, offering step-by-step guidance, using accessible, voice, videos and lessons in every scheduled language. It can answer fundamental legal questions, explain rights and rights, and connect users to volunteer lawyers or paraleygars,” he said.
He said, “Precious legal advice through interactive voice response can serve visually or illiterate. Artificial intelligence can simplify legal documents, translate orders in regional languages,” he said.
He said that virtual folk adults should also become a reality using safe video platforms.
“Case hearing, especially family disputes, minor civil issues, for labor disputes, can be accompanied by minimum travel and cost, which saves time and resources to save cases.
“Artificial Intelligence, if deployed morally and transparently, may be another game-changer to help in screen matters, can prioritize immediate needs, and even generate first-level documents,” he said.
He also shared that in remote villages in Assam, paralegal are now using mobile phones to record the admiration of domestic violence and the remaining people can be connected to the Pro Bono Advocate in real time.
He said, “Virtual folk adults in Maharashtra disposed of virtual folk adults in thousands of cases, curing workers unpaid wages without stepping outside their homes. In Tamil Nadu, legal aid in Tamil, legal aid chatbots in Tamil have been deployed to answer questions on land rights and tenants.”
Discussing the unused ability of technology, Justice Kant warned that the enthusiasm of technology should be angry with restraint.
Saying that digital legal aid cannot be successful if citizens are unfamiliar with basic technology, they emphasized that this is the right time for all stakeholders including educational institutions, public campaign on digital literacy, women, senior citizens, disabled persons and rural youth to prefer.
He also said that privacy and security digital legal aid is a very non-pervantic aspect of the program and said, “As we digitize legal aid, we should design a system with underlying morality.”
He said, “Privacy should be paramount; all platforms handling sensitive legal data should follow rigor data security standards. Digital legal aid platforms should be made to serve disabled persons, screen readers and digitally less literate people.”
He said, “Legal aid cannot become a factory of canned responses. It should not reduce the problems of the people. There should always be a human decline, someone to listen, explain and assure. To hear, explain and assure. The justice should still be heard,” he insisted.
He further stated that the role of the government and the judiciary as a catalyst cannot be abolished.
“Digitally accessible India, Jam Trinity, and the E-Courts Mission Mode Project, with the ongoing digital initiative, the groundwork is being placed for widespread justice improvement. To make these ambitions fully feel, these government-led digital strategies have to be converted with the reforms of the judge.
Meanwhile, the judiciary must adapt to consistently updated procedures to include digital evidence, distance testimony and electronic records, said the Supreme Court Judge said.
He said that through such collaboratory coordination, “We can bring the promise of inclusive digital justice closer to reality”.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without amending the text.
