A few months ago in Ahmedabad, the Municipal Corporation paid Rs 50,000/- as expenses of the Mayor's mother's funeral. Even though amount was small, the citizenry was furious as just 2-3 weeks ago, many had recieved heavy property tax bill, which was far higher than the bill in past as the city has been debt ridden.
The Finance Minister in 1998 had issued orders due to which the companies based in Maurititus were exempted from capital gains taxes. Due to this, GoI lost over Rs 15000 crore in a period of 3-4 years. Most citizens who came to know about disliked it completely.
The citizens were completely against Govt of Maharashtra and GoI signing the infamous "Power Purchase Agreement" with Enron (Dabhol Power Company). Despite the displeasure of citizenry, the handful of leaders/officers/experts who had got heavy bribes went ahead and signed the contract.
It happens 100s and 1000s of times that an officer out of good faith or bad faith would take a decision on behalf of citizens, and later, when citizens come to know about it, they disapprove it vehlemntly.
How can citizens cancel such wrong decisions?
One such procedure I have proposed is "RLPP to Overwrite Officers' Decision", which I have proposed here. This procedure's drawback is that it requires participation of a large number of citizen, which will happen if the decision of officer is of considerable magnitude which affects rank and file of citizenry, such as increasing of money supply. But if an officer's order is a minor routine order, the procedure may not be effective in blocking him as not enough citizens may find time and get information about it.
I propose an ADDITIONAL Jury-based procedure that can be used to cancel an officer's order which may be against the interest of the citizens. I have describe dthis procedure below.
Review By Jurors
A department can have a Grand Jury consisting of say 30 citizens chosen at random, where say 10 citizens retire every month. Thus each Grand Juror will have a term of 3 months.
Given any non-confidential order issued by an officer/Minister of that department or ANY expense cheque that that officer is going to write, the details of the order/check will be published at least 30 days before it is sent out.
Any citizen with evidences, witnesses etc can present an appeal before Grand Jurors within 30 days to cancel that order/expense. If over 15 Grand Jurors declare that there is a reasonable reason to cancel the order, then the Jury Administrator will summon 12 randmonly chosen citizens to review the order/expense.
The citizen and the officer will present their evidences, witnesses and arguments before the Jurors. If over 8 out of 12 Jurors declare that the order/expense is NOT in the interest of the citizens, the HoD (Head of The Department) will cancel the order/expense within 7 days.
In addition, the Jurors may declare that the officer is unfit to serve the citizens, in which case, the Jury Administrator will call a second Jury to fine/expel the officer
Now since the Jurors DO NOT have nexuses with any of the officers, their verdict will be fairer than auditors or enquirers coming from same or another department.
What is the current procedure to cancel an officer's order/expense? A citizen has to appeal before a senior officer, a Minister or a judge. In most cases, the officers have nexuses with the senior officers and Ministers so complaining before an officer/Minister is just a waste of time. And judges are too overloaded with work to give any decision in time. So the existing procedure is too full of nexuses and so worthless for the common men.
Since the 12 citizens chosen at random have no a priori nexuses with the complaining citizen or the officer who took the decision, their decision will be nexusless and will represent citizens' will more honestly that the decision of the senior officers, Ministers and judges.
Basically, the procedure of "Review by Jury" will redcues nexuses and its effect in India's administration. It will promote nexusless in India's administration and make officers more responsible and accountable to citizens.
Applications of this procedure of "Review by Jury"
Follwoing are some of the key proposed applications of "Review by Jury" Applications in the area of Law Making
