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English to Hindi: Access To Justice In Globalised Economy
Source text - English Access To Justice In Globalised Economy
In an age when politics is giving way to market, poor stand little chance as judiciary too undergoes restructuring. This is called for to suit the needs of market economy where billionaire's right to remain super rich and plight of the most impoverished to be super-poor are going to be accepted.
Upendra Baxi
Allow me to make one general and extended preliminary remark concerning the overall theme of this conference: 'Equity and Equality in a Market Economy.'
This is indeed a puzzling theme because central to the notion of the market itself are two institutions of law: the right to private property, in all its sacrosanctity, over the means of production and the right of freedom to contract. Both these notions put together signify the Rule by Capital, not any conception of the Rule of Law guided by equity and equality, conceived either constitutionally or in terms of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. Once we accept the right to private property in the means of production, we also accept more or less the right of the billionaires to remain super-rich and the plight of the most impoverished to be super-poor. We further accept that both the freedom to own property and freedom of contract imply the right to inflict lawful harm on others.
The elegant expression 'market economy' conceals more than it reveals. To understand it rather fully, we need to grasp the distinction between production and seduction. The French postmodernist thinker Jean Braudillard, in his small monograph The Mirror of Production, educated us in the meaning of this distinction: production makes invisible things visible; in contrast seduction makes the previously visible things invisible. We must surely ask what the Indian Constitution thus produced and the seduction now entailed in the current 'Age of Reforms.'
For one thing, the labours of Indian constitution-makers made fully legible many contradictions between social, economic, and political life, about which Babasaheb Ambedkar spoke about so movingly at the moment of the adoption of the Constitution. His speech concerning the 'life of contradictions' frequently adorns the discourse of the Supreme Court of India. These contradictions were specifically highlighted by the proclamation of the values of equitable social development in a postcolonial India paired with a grudging insertion of Article 31 rights to private property. The history of judicial interpretation and constitutional amendments –- from the First to the 44th Amendment — archives fully the endeavour to regulate private property in the means of production in the name of equity and equality offered by state regulation. True, the 44th Amendment finally abolished the right to property, or rather demoted it to a status of merely a constitutional right. But this came too late and constituted too little to serve the cause of equality and equity in constitutional development. I cannot pursue this enormous narrative today, save to remind us all that the Indian Supreme Court has now fully reverted to its adjudicatory policy stance in the first three decades of Indian constitutional interpretation which entrenched contract and property above all fundamental rights. Five out of the six stories that I present later fully illustrate this trend.
The seduction occurs when the preambulatory values, the fundamental rights of the masses of Indian impoverished, and the Directive Principles of State Policy, and Fundamental Duties of all Citizens, are rendered relatively invisible by apex policy-makers and summit Justices alike. The Directives in particular represent a vision of constitutional development ill suited to the contemporary era of economic reforms.
We have been asked variously, however, at the inaugural occasion yesterday the ways in which Indian legal education, research, and profession, even the judiciary, may service the needs of globalised market. The learned Prime Minister urged us to realise that the 'legal world has become a global village' and that globalisation signifies vast opportunities for us all to become world–class players in the global 'markets of law.' He urged us to improve 'the quality of public discourse' to serve the 'needs of the country.' But overall these needs remained defined and described in terms of India as a global market player. In effect, the learned Prime Minister, and Honourable Law Minister asked law students, teachers, and professionals, not so much to become soldiers of justice but rather to act as the cohorts of global capitalism.
At least, that is how I received their entirely understandable message! I suspect on a close listening of the speech of the learned Chief Justice that he may have had some partial caveats to offer but I remain unsure and request your cooperation in understanding his subtexts a little better.
I sincerely hope that I am entirely wrong in receiving the overall message of the inaugural session that contained two rather contradictory messages: the rule of law should remain global capital friendly as well as human rights friendly. I simply do not know, nor can tell, how this may ever be accomplished. I will have to exit this thematic now, given the time-constraints, but I hope that what now follows may perhaps illustrate the oxymoronic nature of the principal theme of our discussion.
Let me at the very outset say that the term 'access to justice' is as mystical as the expression 'globalised economy.'
Careful readers of the recently disconcluded WTO Doha Round will surely share this perception. One of the key categories there involved was NAMA-- 'Non-Agricultural Market Access'-- aiming at worldwide elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers on free trade. As we know, the US-based Zero Tariff Coalition chaired by an executive from Dow Chemical, demanded zero tariffs in a large number of crucial sectors including even sporting goods, toys, wood machinery, and wood products! As some critics explain this, NAMA 'is a dream vehicle for corporations seeking a global rollback of taxes and regulations.' As we also know, the G90 (a grouping of the WTO's 90 percent poorest nations) expressed all kinds of fears concerning the risk that unbridled global competition may pose to their infant industries and small firms. They articulated apprehensions that zero tariff would escalate further the crisis of de-industrialisation, unemployment and poverty and result in a kind of 'search and destroy mission' for natural resources inherent in NAMA as promoted by global capital. They proposed various measures calling for information labelling, export restrictions on natural resources, and sustainable producers being 'dumped' on by cheap imports and in effect for articulation of 'popular sovereignty' over the right to regulate market access.
The notion of 'globalised economy' then signifies new forms of predation by global capital. Globalisation here refers to a new form of colonisation without colonisers; put another way, a new form of what I describe elsewhere as 'conquest globalisation.' Its earlier forms consisted in directly visible and massive appropriation of territories, resources, and peoples; the current incarnation remains even more sinister because the similar planned appropriation is rendered almost invisible.
The task of critique concerning so-called globalised economy consists in devising historically accurate ways that establish a common identity between the East India Company and its lethal lineal descendants, the contemporary personifications of multinational capital, via the MNCs and their normative cohorts, the International Financial Institutions. These now use the languages of access and claim that such access remains essential to achievement of global justice! The tasks of human rights and new social movements also thereby stand defined by the slogan: Justice consists in a resolute denial of such access.
The massive difficulties confronting this task stands posed by what Professor Leslie Sklair names insightfully as the 'new universal globalising middle class,' a segment of which stands here assembled at this Conference. We all seem, almost without exception, to believe that the new form of conquest globalisation is a good thing, after all. We all use computers, cell phones, the internet, the I-Pod, the DVDs, and related devices. We all believe that that the digital and biotech revolution remain more emancipative than the 'socialist' revolutions of the yesteryear. We all have stories to tell about how access to cyberspace facilitates the formation of new human rights and social action/movement solidarities. And we believe that if contemporary technologies of globalisation create new problems, these at the same moment remain endowed with the future prowess of techofixes that will necessarily solve these. In this, we remain consciously or otherwise juristic/ juridical/judicial technophiles, in turn promoting forms of techno-politics as a crucial dimension of the so-called 'good governance.' Through all these, and related moves, uncritically celebrating the 'globalised economy' in everyday action we remain complicit with conquest globalisation.
We all are constantly fed with the propaganda that the 'network society' aided by the digital revolutions facilitates access to sources of information hitherto previously unimaginable and if there may exist any digital divides, processes are already under way to bridge or at least abridge it. Like all propaganda, this represents a kernel of truth. But also by the same token this also overstates the claims of equal access to knowledge and information in cyberspace. As the illuminating corpus of Professor Manuel Castells shows, the rise of the network society may not always favour access to justice; in fact, it may indeed promote forms of global violence and injustice. And Professor Peter Drahos alerts us, indwells in the infinite promise of democratisation of information also the peril of some new orders of ' informational feudalism.'
Even when lacking the luxury of time on this occasion to elaborate in any detail the promise and the peril of the new informational capitalism now firmly in place, please allow me to make one remark: the dominant in civil society and the state in so many domains of the so-called 'globalised economy' simply, starkly, and with vast orders of politics of cruelty, trump the human rights claims of the dominated; vast masses of human beings remain condemned to a preoccupation merely with cheating their ways into daily survival. Put simply, they remain simply, and unconscionably, priced out of the constantly otherwise expansive globalised 'access talk.'
Contemporary globalisation assumes many forms, where legal and judicial globalisations play a major role. Legal globalisation consists of many 'things'. It signifies the modernisation of the metropolitan legal profession, lending it a competitive edge in the world markets for legal services. In the process, some vice chancellors of the elite national law schools serve important roles in advising on matters of constitutional change, economic policy and law reform even as they prepare their students for absorption into corporate practice. Legal globalisation also refers to new law reform agenda shaping the course of the three 'Ds' of economic globalisation: de-nationalization, disinvestment, and deregulation. Prominent on this agenda remain the shaping of new regulatory institutions, processes, and cultures; increased emphasis on alternate dispute resolution; simplification of investment and
Contemporary globalisation assumes many forms, where legal and judicial globalisations play a major role. Legal globalisation consists of many 'things'. It signifies the modernisation of the metropolitan legal profession, lending it a competitive edge in the world markets for legal services.
commercial law; and tendency towards accelerated growth of 'flexible labour markets'. Law reform, especially the efficiency of the administration of justice, becomes more visibly the instrument of the new economic policy. A process curiously named as 'far globalisation' generates some important legal changes such as the employment guarantee scheme act, the more vigorous enforcement of child labour laws, regime of protection of consumer rights, and of the right to information. Legal globalisation, overall, serves and promotes the needs of the new globalising middle classes of India.
I believe that we must raise a related question concerning the global social origins of all this newly fangled access to justice talk. Who/which are the forces, managers, and agents of the globalised access to justice talk? And how may we characterise their 'original intent'? To put the matter rather summarily, it seems to me crystal-clear that the manifold labours of the international and regional financial institutions, the triadic communities of states — the United States, the European Union and Japan -- and the now deeply fractured WTO -- signify by 'access' simply the potential for penetration of third world markets of labour and capital in modes that make these safer for the community of multinational corporations and direct foreign investors. In this vision, postcolonial national constitutions and its laws, manifest themselves as obstacles to access to the flows of global capitalism. Thus, these now remain heavily subject (as Professors Stephen Gill and David Schneiderman painstakingly remind us) to the newly minted prowess of the newly emergent yet fully robust 'new economic constitutionalism.'
Allow me to bring home the tragedy of all our access talk in the context of judicial globalisation. In the sparse but important literature on the subject, judicial globalisation suggests a new order of comity and cooperation among the world's apex courts and justices. At the first sight, there is little objectionable with the idea that apex justices of different jurisdictions ought to meet with each other and learn from each other's achievements and dilemmas, or that they become a cooperative 'community' pursuing the tasks of national and global justice. But often these simple-looking ideas carry some hidden agenda. Judicial comity is often tinged with hegemony, and at times simple domination.
Thus, for example, Judge Keenan in the Bhopal Case deferred to the competence of the Indian courts to decide the complex situation of mass disaster caused by the Union Carbide Corporation; Keenan went so far as to register a desire that he wished the Indian judiciary to stand tall in complex mass torts adjudication! The sting in the tail was this: any damage award remained subject to 'due process' requirement and it was left completely open to a New York equivalent of Indian Small Causes Court to decide finally whether the Indian Supreme Court was capable of any correct understanding of this requirement! Judicial globalisation, in sum, means subservience of the South apex courts by the hegemonic North judicial fora. I have in my Hague Academy Lecture (2000) more fully illustrated this dimension of judicial globalisation.
Judicial globalisation further occurs in the name of 'good governance' which requires an intense reform of justicing under the auspices of governmental and intergovernmental aid and development agencies. Again in principle un-objectionable, such auspices often take over the agenda of law reform and reform of judicial administration, and shape them in accordance with their economic and strategic needs. In particular stands promoted the idea of judicial self-restraint in policy matters of trade liberalisation, direct foreign investment, the establishment of company towns, free trade economic zones, and flexible labour markets.
Although 'structural adjustment' is a notion that primarily extends to International Financial Institutions induced conditionalities that swallow the hard-won independence of postcolonial nations [1], and this notion is not thus far covertly extended to apex adjudicatory power, prowess, and process. I here suggest that the World Bank/IMF/UNDP, and related, programs of 'good governance' understandably, if not justifiably, promote structural adjustment of judicial activism. These covertly address, as well as overall seek to entrench, market-friendly, trade-related forms of judicial interpretation and governance. Judicial self-restraint concerning macro-economic policy as the basis of adjudicatory policy stands proselytised by the already hyper-globalised Indian appellate Bar. Understandably, the processes of judicial appointment preclude any serious regard for the elevation of noticeably outspoken judicial critics of Indian globalisation. No longer may the judicial collegium already in place dare nominate a potential Krishna Iyer, D.A. Desai, Chinnappa Reddy, or even a Bhagwati!
Before I proceed with six stories, please allow me to say that I remain an unabashed votary of judicial activism, Indian-style, which it remained my privilege to foster and further via social action litigation. In word (in my writings) and in deed (in my interventions/appearances before the Supreme Court of India), I have celebrated the many avatars of Indian judicial activism variously. For example, I have described judicial activism as transforming the Supreme Court of India as the Supreme Court for the impoverished masses of Indian-citizens; I have celebrated judicial activism as an essential chemotherapy for the cancerous Indian body politic. I have described in vivid detail, and applauded, the ways in which activist Indian Justices have proceeded to invent a new jurisdiction (which I name as the 'epistolary' jurisdiction), established new forms of appellate fact-finding (notably via the device of socio-legal citizen commissions of enquiry), re-scripted fundamental rights considered and rejected by constitution-makers for inclusion in Part III (such as 'due process,' right to speedy trial and to bail)' and enunciated new galaxies of human rights (such as the right to privacy and dignity, livelihood, environmental integrity, information and participation). The many–splendoured distinctive achievements of social action litigation have already, and continue to, fully assist the processes of re-democratisation' of the Indian constitutional polity.
I need to reiterate all this out of any naïve authorial vanity but as an act of resistance to the forms of legal and judicial globalisation, which now foster the art of organised public amnesia, even concerning the new styles and habits of the now-taken-for-granted ways of judicial governance of India. At the same moment, it also needs to be said that celebration differs from panegyric orgies, rituals that serve no worthwhile ends than those pandering narcissisms of the moment.
I have been critical of some adjudicatory policies and outcomes. In this, I am not in any way singular. Activist scholarship everywhere, but more poignantly in the Indian conjuncture, serves its cause well by abstaining from performances of judicial sycophancy, in any case prohibited by Article 51-A of the Constitution that urges all Indian citizens to develop 'scientific temper', 'spirit' of critical enquiry and social reform', and above all the virtue of 'excellence' in all 'walks of life'. In sum, this virtue casts a responsibility on all Indian citizens to expose mediocrity in adjudicative policy and performance. The Constitution then requires of both apex judicial actors and their critics to shun mediocrity and pursue excellence; these remain in real life, I acknowledge, difficult virtues to practice.
Allow me, in this milieu, to proceed with my six stories! The first story relates to the constitutionality of some globalisation induced trade/aid/grant conditionalities. The Supreme Court had indeed developed the doctrine of 'unconstitutional conditions' (notably by the exertions of Justice Mathew) and the later doctrines concerning unconstitutional disappointment of legitimate expectations and of prohibition of unjust enrichment. All these doctrines, in sum, dignified strict judicial scrutiny of macro and micro economic/development policies that adversely impacted on equality/equity or human rights and fundamental freedoms of the most vulnerable classes of Indian citizens. These doctrines now lie buried five fathoms deep.
My first story concerns the activist challenge to India's accession to the WTO impugned on the ground that it violated not just Part III provisions but also the basic structure of the Constitution, an eminently well-crafted judicial doctrine [put in the Onida-TV advert as 'owner's pride and neighbour's envy'.] The Bombay High Court rather blithely dismissed the contention! On one reading of its judgment, the Court, overall, asked the petitioners to return to its powers as and when any such deleterious impact became more manifest! Unlike the classic discourse concerning the certification of the interim constitution where the South African Constitutional Court subjected it to the test of basic principles, the Court did not even seek to match the blood-group of the WTO agreements, especially the TRIPS, with Parts III and IV of the Constitution. It is no consolation, though in a different context, for us to know that the Philippines Supreme Court likewise abstained/ abdicated its role. May I suggest that we read this decisional stance as the first step towards the structural adjustment of judicial review power, process, and activism? To steal a famous phrase from Ronald Dworkin, the eminent Court acts here as a 'deputy' to the legislators, let alone as 'deputy legislator.'
A second momentous development towards the structural adjustment of judicial role, and activism, occurs through the entirely unconscionable and unconstitutional judicial orders decreeing the infamous Bhopal settlement. Should you find these words too harsh, I invite your attention to the text of these orders. The Court there not merely reduces the compensable amount from the Indian government computed US 3 billion dollar to 470 million dollar but also grants the Union Carbide full immunity from criminal proceedings and surrogates the Indian government as a fully-fledged fiduciary clone of that multinational, and all its world-wide affine, in regard to all civil action in India and at world at large! Our efforts at review petition saved the Court, at least partially, of the ignominy of a 'done deal' providing criminal immunity to Union Carbide.
I have written rather extensively concerning this astonishingly anguishing adjudicatory performance but also been responsible for review petitions that ultimately, but effetely, quash some of these immunities/impunities. Twenty-one years since, and I cannot speak of this without a lump in my heart; the catastrophic victims remain staggeringly re-victimised. For the present occasion, this narrative suggests a judicially induced/managed transition room; the paradigm of the universal human rights of all suffering peoples to that of trade-related, market-friendly human rights paradigm.
A third story concerning structural adjustment of judicial activism stands presented in the determined reversal of the proud labour jurisprudence of the Supreme Court itself. The juristic and juridical labours of Krishna Iyer, D.A. Desai, Chinnappa Reddy M. P. Thakkar, and in earlier times of Subba Rao and Gajendragadkar, even a Hidyatullah, are now reversed by many a hurried stoke of insensitive judicial pen! A 2006 decision of the Supreme Court [2] even goes so far as to 'denude' all prior contrary decisions of their authoritative status! This sweeping dismissal of prior binding precedents signifies an entirely unaccountable and rather unprecedented judicial technique in the annals of the Indian as well as the Commonwealth judiciary! The learned Justice who writes the principal opinion even goes so far as to suggest that his predecessors laboured under a misimpression that ours was a socialist constitution!
This eminent judge compelled a momentous jurisprudential anxiety for me in my Warwick location. I scourged the histories of recent amendments to ascertain whether some recent constitutional amendments had after all deleted this 42nd Amendment insertion to the Preamble to the Constitution! Allow me to bring to you the good news that this preambulatory recital has survived the ravages of contemporary Indian globalisation! The bad news is that this now for the Supreme Court of India makes not a tattle of difference!
I am not saying at all the later Justices may not feel free to dissent from their predecessors. Nor am I saying that the predecessors may claim any prophetic wisdom over the future of constitutional development. However, I do wish to suggest with the fullest constitutional sincerity that in doing so they remain fully accountable at the bar of public reason. And in this respect they altogether seem now to collectively fail.
A fourth narrative of structural adjustment of judicial power stands furnished by the Supreme Court's momentously meandering jurisprudence concerning the Narmada Dam construction. At one decisional moment, we are told that the height of the dam may not be raised without the most solicitous regard for the human rights, and human futures, of the ousted project affected citizen-peoples. At another decisional moment stands enacted the unconstitutional pari passu principle, under whose auspices submergence may actually
There is simply no way to 'conclude' this agonised presentation, save by saying that the access talk remains a part of the problem, not a part of any solution
occur with some indeterminate regard for relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement. At a third moment, the affected citizen-peoples stand somehow assured that the Court is not powerless to render justice to them even as submergence occurs. Who knows what a fourth moment may after all turn out to be? The present writing on the judicial wall fully suggests the possibility that the Court may terminally declare that the tasks of relief, resettlement, and rehabilitations stand almost fully and magically accomplished!
A fifth story of the structurally adjusted judicial role and 'responsibility' stands now furnished by the judicially mandated/mediated/sanctioned urban demolition drives that cruelly impose themselves on the bloodied bodies of the urban impoverished. Some recent judicial performances go so far as to fully suggest a total reversal of human rights to dignity and livelihood, which the Court itself since the Eighties so painstaking evolved. Some court orders go so far as to mandate, under the pain of contumacious conduct, any human rights-oriented intervention against the enforced demolitions. The impoverished urban evacuees stand denied all rights of constitutional due process, including access to their erstwhile meagre belongings. The bulldozers remove the last sight of their existence as documented citizens; all evidence of title and occupation (including the only 'passport' they possess by way of pattas, their inchoate 'title' deeds, and prominently their ration cards) stand maliciously and wantonly destroyed.
Not too long ago during the 1975-76 imposition of the internal Emergency, such happenings were poignantly described as emergency excesses. Today, these somehow constitute the badges of good governance! Surely, structural adjustment of judicial activism, or judicial globalisation Indian-style, thus with a single-minded consistency, now produces with some irreversible human rights destructive globalising intendment some new judicial productions of the estates of Indian human rightlessness.
A sixth story concerns the harsh way in which the Indian Supreme Court dealt with the 'contempt' committed by Zahira Sheikh. She signifies a multiple-produced series of texts of victimage constituted severally: first, as an eye-witness to the destruction by arson of her own kin and affine by the Hindutva mobs; second, as news/views 'commodity' in hyperglobalising Indian mass media; third, as a resource appropriated by local politicians and by some activists alike and fourth as a commodity in the heavily mass media inflected markets of human rights and social movement activism. Overall here, a deeply traumatised victim of organised political catastrophe, or holocaust, stands compelled by the force of circumstance to make contradictory statements that finally decree her fate as a contumacious Indian citizen worthy only of the most severe punishment in the annals of contempt jurisprudence.
The same Court, however, remained largely lenient in its regard for Chief Minister Kalyan Singh for an objectively presented far worse egregious contumacious conduct leading to the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the communal carnage that followed. It also remained lenient for Arundhati Roy, a historically belated NBA activist figuration, marshalling the full range of powers of International Union of Journalists, and Shiv Shankar, a former Union Law Minister, for a while marshalling the power of judicial elevation. Their egregious contumacious conduct was thought eligible for the otherwise rather relaxed standards of contempt punishment. Yet, the Supreme Court leaned heavily on Zahira. How may we understand this judicial asymmetry in our, or indeed in any access talk, save by the fact that that high political status was simply not available to Zahira?
To depict the scenario thus is not to present any mean-mouthed mode of attributing any class differential in access to justice. Yet in discharging my citizen responsibility acting under Part IV-A fundamental duties of Indian citizens requires me to highlight the different strokes of the judicial exercise of contempt power, which also mark some enormous differentials of access to free speech under the Indian Constitution.
How indeed may one fully grasp the forms of politico-judicial toleration of contumacious performances that in fact enact different standards for highly placed political figures as compared with ordinary and hapless citizens? Is it also the case as well that some new walls of difference thus erected between globalised and de-globalised Indian citizens? How may we at all grasp the enactment of different tolerance thresholds for public-spirited criticism of adjudicatory styles and performances that now so fully enact some contradictory, dual, even multiple, standards of differential access to justice, as an aspect of freedom of speech and expression, even amidst the most traumatically devastating moments?
There is simply no way to 'conclude' this agonised presentation, save by saying that the access talk remains a part of the problem, not a part of any solution. To reiterate, any approach to solution must at least respond to the following types of questions: How may we de-globalise judicial access, that is, ensure that the overseas and national capital does not ride roughshod over the livelihood and dignity rights of the working classes? How may we ensure that in the making of new Indian global cities, and the enclaves/fortresses of special economic zones, the same range of lived human rights to the migrant and urban impoverished citizens? How may we pour democratic and constitutional content to the borrowed and imposed languages of 'good governance'? How long may the masses of impoverished Indian citizens be treated as mere objects of development policies that reproduce the lives of Indian citizens as receptacles of obscene political waste? How far ought the new economic policy remain effectively a human rights-neutral domain of national governance by elected officials as well the unelected ones (most notably the Justices)? How may we all endeavour together for the restoration of the glory of the Supreme Court of India which finally converted itself, in the halcyon days of democratisation of access, as the Supreme Court for all hapless Indian citizens?
Perhaps, I may sound to you as calling for a Jurassic-park-type revival of Indian judicial activism of the seventies and eighties. You may well want to regard me as a jurisprudential dinosaur. So be it. For weal or woe, I am unable to make any coherent sense of our access talk otherwise.
Perhaps not; I invite summarily the gesture of Jean Francois Lyotard in his Peregrination: Law, Form, and Event when he speaks to us thus: "How may we understand then the descent into the substrata of necessity, to seek out there the most the meaning of the most irrational of historic effects [that resists the [construction of] the incomprehensible and complete tableau of reality… [that listens]… to the obscure passions, the arrogance of leaders, the sadness of workers, the humiliation of peasants, and of the colonised the anger and the bewilderment of revolt; the bewilderment, too, of thought [that invites] again the thread of class in the imbroglio of events."
Justice Goswami once spoke of the Indian Supreme Court as the 'last refuge for the bewildered and the oppressed'. Perhaps, a globalising Indian Supreme Court needs to recover this increasingly lost adjudicatory estate?
The writer is Professor of Law at University of Warwick and former
Vice Chancellor of Delhi University
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Translation - Hindi
आर्थिक भूमंडलीकरण और न्याय तक पहुंच
एक ऐसे दौर में जब राजनीति बाजार को बढ़ावा दे रही है और न्यायपालिका भी खुद को उसी सांचे में ढाल रही है, ऐसे में गरीबों के लिए तो कोई अवसर हीं नहीं बचा है। राजनीति और न्यायपालिका बाजार अर्थव्यव्यवस्था की जरूरतें पूरी कर रही हैं ताकि अरबपतियों के और ज्यादा अमीर बनने के 'अधिकारों' की रक्षा हो सके तो दूसरी ओर गरीब और ज्यादा गरीब बने रहें। 'बाजार अर्थव्यवस्था में समान भागीदारी और समानता' पर इंडियन लॉ इंस्टीटयूट के गोल्डन जुबली समारोह में उपेंद्र बख्शी का व्याख्यान
बाजार अर्थव्यवस्था में समान भागीदारी और समानता पर हुए सम्मेलन पर अगर एक आम और शुरुआती टिप्पणी की जाए तो मैं यही कहूंगा कि यह बड़ा ही उलझाने वाला विषय हैं। बाजार की धारणा में दो कानूनी संस्थाएं मौजूद हैं। निजी संपत्ति का अधिकार और बिना किसी उल्लंघन के उत्पादन के साधनों पर और समझौतों की स्वतंत्रता का अधिकार। दोनों ही धारणाओं को अगर मिला दिया जाए तो यह किसी कानून का शासन नहीं बल्कि 'भागीदारी और समानता' द्वारा संचालित 'पूंजी का शासन' है। अब इसे चाहे संवैधानिक समझ जाए या फिर मानव अधिकारों और मौलिक अधिकारों के अर्थ में समझा जाए। अगर हम उत्पादन के साधनों पर निजी संपत्ति के अधिकार को स्वीकार करते हैं तो इसका मतलब होगा कि हम अरबपतियों के और ज्यादा अमीर बनने और गरीबों के और ज्यादा गरीब होने के अधिकार को स्वीकार कर रहे हैं। साथ ही हमने यह भी स्वीकार कर लिया है कि सम्पत्ति का मालिक होने और समझौते करने की स्वतंत्रता का मतलब दूसरों को कानूनी रूप से नुकसान पहुंचाने का अधिकार है।
'बाजार अर्थव्यवस्था' जैसी है, वैसी दिखती नहीं है। इसे पूरी तरह समझने के लिए हमें उत्पादन और प्रलोभन में अंतर समझना होगा। उत्तर आधुनिक काल के फ्रांसीसी विचारक ज्यां ब्रादिया ने अपने एक निबंध 'द मिरर ऑव प्रोडक्शन' में इस अंतर को स्पष्ट किया है : उत्पादन अदृश्य वस्तुओं को दृश्य बनाता है और लालच दृश्य वस्तुओं को अदृश्य कर देता है, हमें निश्चित रूप से यह सवाल उठाना चाहिए कि आज के 'सुधारों के युग' में भारतीय संविधान ने क्या बनाया, जिसे लालच ने बिगाड़ दिया।
संविधान निर्माताओं ने सामाजिक, आर्थिक और राजनीतिक जीवन के बीच कई अंतर्विरोधों को पठनीय बना दिया, जिसके बारे में स्वीकार किये जाने के मौकों पर बाबा साहब आंबेडकर भी भावुक हो उठे थे। 'विरोधाभासों से भरा जीवन' पर अपने भाषण में उन्होंने सर्वोच्च न्यायालय की भरपूर प्रशंसा की। उपनिवेशी शासन से मुक्त होने के बाद भारत में समान सामाजिक विकास के मूल्यों की घोषणा में ये अन्तर्विरोध दिखाई देते हैं। इन मूल्यों की घोषणा के साथ संविधान में अनुच्छेद 31 के तहत 'संपत्ति का अधिकार' भी जोड़ दिया गया।
अगर हम संविधान में किये गए 1 से 44 तक के संशोधनों और न्यायालय द्वारा की गई व्याख्याओं पर नजर डालें तो हमें यह साफ दिखाई देगा कि किस तरह राज्यों के नियमों के तहत भागीदारी और समानता के नाम पर उत्पादन के साधनों पर निजी संपत्ति अधिकार लागू कराने की कोशिशें की गई। पर अन्त में 44वें संविधान संशोधन द्वारा इसे समाप्त कर दिया गया, सच में खत्म हुआ या फिर इसे संवैधानिक अधिकार के स्तर पर लाकर खड़ा कर दिया गया है। जो भी है, बहुत देर से हुआ। इसने संवैधानिक विकास में समानता और भागीदारी के लिये बहुत थोड़ी ही भूमिका निभाई। यहां मैं यह पूरी कहानी बयां करने नहीं जा रहा हूं, बल्कि यह याद दिलाने की कोशिश कर रहा हूं कि संवैधानिक व्याख्या के पहले दशकों में सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने जो कुछ भी कहा था अब वह अपने ही दिये गए फैसलों से मुकर रहा है। पहले दिये गए फैसलों के मौलिक अधिकारों के सामने सभी करारों और संपत्ति को नगण्य बताया था। मैं ऐसे पांच उदाहरण दे सकता हूं, जिसमें न्यायालय का बदला हुआ रूप साफ दिखाई देता है।
भारतीय संविधान की प्रस्तावना के मूल्य, गरीब और पिछड़े लोगों के मौलिक अधिकार, नीति-निर्देशक तत्व और नागरिकों के मूल कर्तव्य सब कुछ नीति-निर्माताओं और न्यायाधीशों ने मिलकर खत्म कर दिया है। हमारे नीति- निर्देशक तत्व खासतौर पर संवैधानिक विकास की तस्वीर बनाने के लिए संविधान में रखे गए थे जो आज के आर्थिक सुधारों के दौर में फिट नहीं हो रहे हैं।
एक उद्धाटन समारोह में भाग लेते समय, बहुत से लोगों ने हमारे से यह सवाल पूछा कि क्या भारतीय कानूनी शिक्षा, शोध, व्यवसाय और यहां तक कि न्यायपालिका वैश्विक बाजार की जरूरतों को पूरा कर पाएगी?
उद्धाटन सत्र में सुशिक्षित प्रधानमंत्री जी ने हमें यह समझाने की कोशिश की कि 'कानूनी दुनिया अब सिमटकर एक गांव बन गई है और ऐसे में भूमंडलीकरण हमें दुनिया के 'कानूनी बाजार' में अंतर्राष्ट्रीय खिलाड़ी बनने का मौका दे रहा है। उन्होंने 'देश की जरूरतें पूरी करने के लिए' हमें सार्वजनिक भाषा में भी सुधार करने के लिए कहा। लेकिन इन जरूरतों को सिर्फ भारत के विश्व बाजार के एक खिलाड़ी के रूप में ही परिभाषित किया गया। प्रधानमंत्री और विधिमंत्री ने विद्यार्थियों, अध्यापकों और व्यवसायियों से कहा कि उन्हें इतना ज्यादा न्याय का प्रहरी बनने की जरूरत नहीं है, बल्कि वैश्विक पूंजी के सहयोगी के रूप में काम करें।
खैर, यह तो वह था कि कैसे मुझे उनका सन्देश मिला। लेकिन चीफ जस्टिस का भाषण सुनकर तो मैं दंग रह गया। मुझे सन्देह है कि उन्हें यह बोलने के लिए कुछ प्रलोभन दिया गया होगा, हालांकि मैं पक्के यकीन के साथ यह नहीं कह सकता। इसलिये आप सबसे अनुरोध करता हूं कि उनके भाषण के शब्दों को बेहतर ढंग से समझने में मेरा सहयोग करें।
मैं आशा करता हूं कि उद्धाटन समारोह में दिये गए सारे संदेशों को ग्रहण करने में मैं गलत साबित हो जाऊं जिनमें दो विरोधी संदेश थे: कानून के शासन को मान अधिकारों के साथ-साथ वैश्विक पूंजी का भी सहयोगी होना चाहिए। सचमुच न तो मुझे पता है और न ही बता सकता हूं कि ऐसा कैसे सम्भव हो सकता है। खैर मैं अब इस विषय को यहीं विराम देता हूं, और उम्मीद करता हूं कि अब मैं जो कुछ कहने जा रहा हूं, हो सकता है वह हमारी चर्चा के विषय के विरोधाभासों को स्पष्ट करे।
सबसे पहले तो मैं यह बताना चाहूंगा कि 'न्याय तक पहुंच' (एक्सेस टू जस्टिस) शब्द उतना ही रहस्यवादी है जितना कि 'वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था'। जिन लोगों ने डब्ल्यूटीओ की विफल हुई दोहा वार्ताओं को देखा है वे जरूर इस बात से सहमत होंगे। इस वार्ता में 'नॉन एग्रीकल्चर मार्केट एक्सेस' (नामा)भी शामिल था, जिसका मुख्य लक्ष्य था कि मुक्त बाजार पर सभी प्रकार के शुल्क संबंधी और गैर शुल्क सम्बंधी प्रतिबंधों को सभी देश हटा लें। जैसा कि हम सभी को पता है कि 'अमेरिका की जीरो टैरिफ कोएलिशन' जिसके एक कर्मचारी डॉव केमिकल्स से थे, ने मांग की कि बहुत से क्रूशियल सेक्टरों में जीरो टैरिफ कर दिया जाए। इनमें खेल का सामान, खिलौने, लकड़ी की मशीनें और लकड़ी का सामान भी शामिल था। कुछ आलोचकों ने नामा को कंपनियों के लिए एक ऐसा स्वप्निल वाहन बताया जो पूरी दुनिया में करों और नियमों को कुचल रहा है। जैसा कि हमें पता है जी-90 ने भी खतरे के लिए भय व्यक्त किया था कि कहीं मुक्त अंतर्राष्ट्रीय प्रतियोगिता छोटे उद्योगों और छोटी फर्मों को खत्म न कर दे। उन्हें यह भी डर था कि जीरो टैरिफ आगे चलकर अनौद्योगीकरण, बेकारी और गरीबी जैसे संकट पैदा कर देगा। वैश्विक पूंजी से प्रोत्साहित होकर 'नामा' की प्राकृतिक संसाधनों की खोज विनाश का मिशन न बन जाए।
उन्होंने बहुत से मानक भी प्रस्तुत किये जैसे सूचना लेबल लगाना, प्राकृतिक संसाधनों के निर्यात पर रोक, सस्ता आयात और सार्वजनिक संप्रभुता कायम करने के लिए बाजार तक सबकी पहुंच।
असल में 'वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था' की धारणा 'वैश्विक पूंजी' द्वारा लूट के नये तरीकों को परिभाषित करती है। भूमंडलीकरण का मतलब नए तरह का उपनिवेशवाद है, जिसमें उपनिवेशवादी नहीं है इसे 'विजयी भूमंडलीकरण' भी कह सकते हैं। इसके पुराने रूप में प्रदेशों, साधनों और लोगों पर हुकूमत साफ तौर पर दिखाई तो देती थी, लेकिन अब नए रूप में तो कुछ भी दिखाई नहीं देता, सब कुछ अदृश्य रूप से हो रहा है, जो और भी घातक है।
इस तथाकथित 'वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था' के आलोचक इतिहास में ही इसकी जड़ें देखते हैं, जिससे ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी और उसी जैसी घातक वर्तमान कंपनियों द्वारा मानवीकृत बहुराष्ट्रीय पूंजी, बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनियों के सहयोगी और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय वित्तीय संस्थाओं के बीच संबंध दिखाई देता है। अब ऐसी भाषा का इस्तेमाल करते हैं, जिससे पहुंच सम्भव हो सके और अपने मकसद को पूरा करने के लिए दावा करते हैं कि वैश्विक न्याय पाने के लिए यही भाषा जरूरी है। मानव अधिकारों और नए सामाजिक आंदोलन का काम भी केवल नारों में ही दिखाई देता है : 'ऐसी घुसपैठ को नकारना ही न्याय है।'
इसी कॉफ्रेंस में जब प्रोफेसर लेजली लेयर ने 'नया सर्वव्यापी वैश्वीकृत मध्यवर्ग' का नाम दिया तो कई सारी दिक्कतें सामने आ खड़ी हुईं। हम सभी को यह विश्वास हो गया कि 'विजयी वैश्वीकरण' का नया रूप अच्छी चीज है। हम सभी कम्प्यूटर, सेलफोन, इंटरनेट, आईपॉड, डीवीडी और ऐसे अनेक उपकरण इस्तेमाल करते हैं। हम सभी को यकीन है कि एक दो वर्ष पहले की 'समाजवादी क्रांति' की बजाय डिजिटल और बायोटेक क्रांति ही परिवर्तन लाने में समर्थ है। हम सभी बता सकते हैं कि किस तरह से साइबरस्पेस में जाकर हम नए मानव अधिकारों और सामाजिक कार्यों और आंदोलनों में एकता बना सकते हैं। हमें विश्वास है कि अगर भूमंडलीकरण की वर्तमान तकनीक नई समस्याओं को पैदा करती है तो भी यही तकनीकियां आने वाले समय में इन समस्याओं का समाधान खोजकर विजयी हो जाएंगी।
तथाकथित 'सुशासन' के इस जटिल पहलू के रूप में टेक्नो-पॉलिटिक्स को बढ़ावा देने के बजाय हम जान बूझकर या अनजाने में ही 'ज्यूडिशियल टेक्नोफाइल्स' बने रहें। इस तरह के कामों से हम अपने रोजमर्रा के कामों में 'वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था' का न केवल स्वागत कर रहे हैं, बल्कि भूमंडलीकरण को विजयी बनाने में भी सहयोग कर रहे हैं।
जैसा कि प्रो. मैनुअल कास्टेल्स का ग्रंथ संग्रह साफ तौर पर दिखाता है कि नेटवर्क सोसायटी का उदय हमेशा न्याय नहीं दिला सकता, इससे वैश्विक हिंसा और अन्याय भी बढ़ सकता है। प्रो. पीटर द्राहोस भी हमें सावधान करते हैं- सूचना के लोकतांत्रीकरण के अनेक वादों में 'सूचना सामंतवाद' के कुछ नए आदेश छिपे हैं।
वर्तमान भूमंडलीकरण के कई रूप हैं, लेकिन इनमें कानूनी और न्यायिक भूमंडलीकरण की मुख्य भूमिका है। कानूनी भूमंडलीकरण में कई बाते हैं। यह कानूनी नौकरियों के लिए विश्व बाजार में एक 'प्रतिस्पर्धात्मक स्थिति बनाता है और महानगरीय कानूनी व्यवसाय को आधुनिक भी बनाता है। इस प्रक्रिया में कुछ प्रतिष्ठत राष्ट्रीय लॉ स्कूलों के वाइस-चांसलर महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभा रहे हैं। वे संवैधानिक बदलाव, आर्थिक नीति और कानून में सुधार आदि के मामलों में सलाह देने के साथ-साथ अपने विद्यार्थियों को कॉरपोरेट ढंग से काम करने के लिए भी तैयार करते हैं।
कानूनी भूमंडलीकरण नए कानूनी सुधार में एजेंडे को भी व्यवक्त करता है जो आर्थिक भूमंडलीकरण के तीन 'डी' डीनैशनलाइजेशन (विराष्ट्रीयकरण), डिस-इंवेस्टमेंट (विनिवेश) और डीरेग्युलेशन (विनियमन) को साकार कर रहा है। इस एजेंडे में खासतौर पर नई कार्यान्यवयन संस्थाओं, प्रक्रियाओं, और संस्कृतियों को अपने ढंग से मोड़ना, विवादों के वैकल्पिक निर्णय पर जोर देना, निवेश और व्यावसायिक कानूनों को सरल बनाना है। इसका झुकाव 'श्रम बाजार' के लचीलेपन को बढ़ावा देने की ओर है। कानूनी सुधारों में न्यायिक प्रशासन की कार्यकुशलता खासतौर पर नई आर्थिक नीति का यंत्र नजर आती है। 'फॉर ग्लोबलाइजेशन' नाम की इस प्रक्रिया ने कई महत्वपूर्ण कानूनी परिवर्तन किये हैं, जैसे- रोजगार गारंटी योजना अधिनियम, बाल श्रम कानूनों को लागू करना, उपभोक्ताओं के अधिकारों की सुरक्षा-व्यवस्था और सूचना का अधिकार। संक्षेप में कहें तो कानूनी भूमंडलीकरण्ा भारत के नए उभरते मध्य वर्ग की जरूरतों को पूरा करने के साथ-साथ जरूरतों को बढ़ावा भी दे रहा है।
मुझे यकीन है कि इस नए विषैले न्याय की वैश्विक सामाजिक उत्पत्ति पर सवाल जरूर उठेंगे कि वैश्विक स्तर पर न्याय पर बात करने वाले कौन से दबाव, मैनेजर और एजेंट हैं। हम उनकी असली मंशा कैसे जान सकते हैं। मुझे तो यह बिल्कुल साफ नजर आ रहा है कि अंतर्राष्ट्रीय और प्रांतीय वित्तीय संस्थाएं, अमेरिका, यूरोपीय संघ, जापान और बुरी तरह से घायल हुआ डब्ल्यूटीओ, इनका एक ही मकसद है कि तीसरी दुनिया के श्रम और पूंजी बाजार में घुसपैठ करना ताकि बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनियों और प्रत्यक्ष विदेशी निवेशकों के लिए साफ-सुरक्षित रास्ता तैयार हो सके।
न्यायिक भूमंडलीकरण के संदर्भ में मैं 'एक्सेस' शब्द के दु:खद पहलू पर रोशनी डालना चाहता हूं। न्यायिक भूमंडलीकरण विषय पर उपलब्ध थोड़े बहुत साहित्य से यह पता चलता है कि यह दुनिया के शीर्ष न्यायालयों और न्यायाधीशों के बीच सौहार्द और सहयोग की नयी व्यवस्था है। पहली नजर में, इस बात पर प्रश्न उठता है कि शीर्ष न्यायधीशों को एक दूसरे के साथ मिलकर उनकी उपलब्धियों को जानना चाहिए या फिर उन्हें राष्ट्रीय और वैश्विक न्याय के कामों का पालन करते हुए 'सहकारी समाज' बन जाना चाहिए। अक्सर साधारण सी दिखने वाली बातों में लेकिन कुछ एजेंडा छिपा होता है। न्यायिक सौहार्द अक्सर आधिपत्य और कभी-कभी तो सामान्य प्रभुत्व में रंगा होता है।
उदाहरण के तौर पर भोपाल गैस कांड में जज कीनान ने कहा कि यूनियन कार्बाइड कॉरपोरेशन के कारण हुए महाविनाश की इस जटिल परिस्थिति के बारे में निर्णय लेने में 'भारतीय न्यायालय' सक्षम नहीं है। कीनन ने तो अपनी इस इच्छा को लिखित तक कर डाल
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Experience
Years of experience: 28. Registered at ProZ.com: Mar 2008.
working with media group and managing WATER COMMUNITY & CLIMATE WATCH.
Earlier worked as Pol. Sc. LECTURER. I've great interest in social and developmental issues.
We organize seminars at times. Through my translation works attempting to make aware the people and govt. with the crisis. I've translated the works of many eminent person like-
ARUNDHATI ROY, PRASHANT BHUSHAN, Prof. AMIT BHADURI, Kanwaljeet Singh(Economist)
Colin Gonsalves (Dir. HRLN.), Michael Parenti, Manoj Mishra, David Smith, Justice Krishna Iyer, Ramaswamy Iyer, P.M. Bhargava (VC. Know. Commission), Sumit sarkar (Historian/Prof. JNU.).
Keywords: localization, fast service, trustworthy, translation, social issues, websites, news, developmental issues, articles, website designing. See more.localization, fast service, trustworthy, translation, social issues, websites, news, developmental issues, articles, website designing, updating websites, magazines translation, conference interpreter, editting & proof reading.. See less.
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