Bootstrapping ---- Election/replacement of High Court Judges
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Proposed administrative procedure CT.09
Election/replacement of High Court Judges


    Contents
  1. Background
  2. Existing procedure to appoint/expel district High Court judges
  3. Problem : Autocracy of High Court judges
  4. CT.09: Procedure to improve Solution to High Court judges' autocracy
  5. Draft of the act to create procedure CT.09

Background

The purpose is to bring India's administration/courts at par with West. How? By improving record keeping in GoI-offices and reducing nexuses in GoI-offices and courts. How? We would need several laws to achieve that.

CT.09 is one of these proposed laws. (to see the list of some of the laws, please click here). The proposed law CT.09 creates a LESS nexusprone mechanism to appoint/expel High Court Judges.


Existing procedures to appoint/expel High Court judges

The Supreme Court judges appoint High Court judges. The PM/CM have limited say, but not much. The Supreme Court judges can transfer High Court judges, but NOT expel them. Only Loksabha MPs, with 2/3rd majority can expel High Court judges. This procedure, known as Impeachment, is so cumbersome that it is practically impossible for common citizens to expel HCjs, no matter how much they despise them.


The Problem : Autocracy of High Court judges

The High Courts judges have powers to cancel any decision taken by any State Minister/officer. A High Court judge also has powers to suspend any govt officer, and order an inquiry against. In addition, the High Court judges, perticularly the Chief judge, has wide powers to transfer, appoint, suspend and even expel judges of lower courts.

Their position become further strong due to the fact that a High Court judge CANNOT be expelled from service even by Supreme Court judges, and only Parliament can impeach/expel him. And the MPs have way too many tasks in their hands and find no time to investigate a High Court judge in detail and decide his fate. And even when MPs find some time, they have no reason to take citizens' wish, will and benefit into account. And MPs have sufficient reason to fear HCjs, and so most would NOT dare to even think of expelling HCjs. So for all practical purposes, HCjs are COMPLETELY immune from citizens will, wish and wrath. This makes them as autocratic as they can be.

Solution?


Solution? CT.09 : Procedure for citizens to elect/expel HCjs

  1. The State High Court should have 1 Chief Judge and several Associate Judges. The Parliament will decide the number of Judges a state will have in the High Court, and will decide the funding. The State Legislature may increase the number of seats, AFTER providing the additional funds.

  2. The Chief Judge of the High Court, and Associate Judges in the High Court should be elected by the citizens residing in the state, and the citizens will have a procedure to expel/replace them as well.

  3. The Chief Judge will be elected for a term of 4 years. A person can be Chief Judge for a period of at most 8 years.

  4. The Associate Judges too will be elected, and for each Associate Judge, the election should be state-wide, NO sub-state constituency. And each citizen voter can vote for twice the number of seats. eg if the contest is for 3 Associate Judges, then each citizen can vote for at most 6 of the standing candidates. The 3 candidates who get highest number of votes will get elected as Associate Judges.

  5. A person can serve as High Court Judge in a state for at most 8 years.

  6. The citizens can replace Chief Judge using RLPP. The brief summary is as foillows
    1. Any person can register himself as candidate for the Chief Judge of the High Court Judge. He will have to pay a monthly fee of Rs 10,000/-, which will be waived if over 10% of the citizens-voters have approved him.

    2. Any citizen can approve upto 5 candidates for the poistion of Chief Judge. If any candidate obtains approval of over 55% of ALL registered citizen voters, he will become the new Chief Judge

    3. (for details of this procedure please click here.

  7. The citizens can replace Associate Judges using RLPP. The brief summary is as foillows
    1. Any person can register himself as candidate for the Associate Judge of the High Court Judge. He will have to pay a monthly fee of Rs 10,000/-, which will be waived if over 10% of the citizens-voters have approved him.

    2. A citizen can approve twice the number of candidates than there are seats. eg if the High Court has seats for 10 Associate Judges, a citizen can approve upto 20 candidates for Associate Judges.

    3. If a candidate obtains Approval of over 55% of ALL registered citizen-voters, he will become the new Associate Judge, and the Associate Judge with lowest number of Approvals, or the junior most Associate Judge will be expelled.

    4. If all the Associate Judges have approval of above 55%, then the candidate must have 2% more approvals than sitting judge with lowets approvals. If that happens, the sitting Judge with lowest approval count will be expelled, and the candidate with highest approval-count will become the new Associate Judge.

  8. In addition, aAny citizen can walk to Talati's office, and register a DIS-APPROVAL against a sitting Associate Judge. If over 50% state's resident citizen-voters register a disapproval, the Judge will be expelled.
The above procedure will ensure that the High Court Judges are accountable to the citizens.

In addition, the HCjs should have NO administrative control over lower court judges. The HCjs should have juridiction ONLY over the verdicts of LCjs. The LCjs should be functionally independent. I have proposed procedure CT.10, which fulfils this requirement. As per CT.10, the lower court judges are DIRECTLY elected by citizens, and only the citizens have powers to expel him. This makes lower court judges independent of HCjs, and this also enables HCjs to spend more time on legal aspects.


Draft of the act to create procedure CT.09

To enact CT.09, the citizens would need to pass an act in the Parliament. I have written that draft. To look at the draft, please click here.

It will be wiser for citizens to first enact procedure LM.03, and then use LM.03 to pass this act. To know about procedure LM.03, please click here.


If you have any other question, please mail it to MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com. Thousand thanks in advance.



Next - CT.14 : RLPP over State Regulator