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Expulsion   By   Jury

    Contents

  1. Existing expulsion procedures are too nexusprone
  2. Expulsion By Jury
  3. How is 'Explusion by Jury' a better procdure than 'Expulsion by officers/judges'
  4. How to enact such procedure?

Existing explusion procedures in India are highly nexusprone

     I studied some 50+ departments in Central Government and some 20+ deparetments in the State Govt and some 10+ depratments in City Corporations. I also studied some of the analogous departments in US. One aspect that I compared was the procedures to expel and office. Today, in the most Departments in India, the rules to expel an officer are vague and highly nexusprone. They are nexusprone, as ALL the powers is vested in the hands of a small number of Ministers/officers/judges. No wonder the officers ignore the common men once they have cultivated the nexuses with these small number Ministers, MPs, MLAs, officers, judges etc. In contrast, rules to expel an officer in US are well defined and NOT nexusprone, as they involve participation of a large number of citizens.


Jury Trial to Expel an Offier

     I will give a specific example : #CT.02 Jury System over Policemen to describe the Jury System to Expel an Officer.
  1. For each City/District, the Mayor/Sarpanch will appoint a Jury Administrator for two years. The citizens may replace using RLPP before his term ends.

  2. The Jury Administrator will create a Grand Jury by selecting 30 citizens at random from the voter list. Each month, 10 citizens will be retired and 10 new citizens will selected at random. Thus the effective term of a Grand Jurors will be 3 months.

  3. If any citizens has complaint against a policemen stationed in the City/District, he may present the complaint, evidences, witnesses and arguments before the Grand Jurors. It will be discretion of Grand Jurors (simple majority) about scheduling the hearings. The Grand Jurors may or may not ask the policeman to appear in the hearing. The policeman may or need not appear in the hearing.

  4. If over 15 (i.e. 16 or more) Grand Jurors declare that the policeman should face a Trial By Jury, the Jury Administrator will arrange for Trial By Jury.

  5. Following is the procedure the Jury administrator will use to select the Jurors

    1. Suppose 20 trials are to start in a given day. Then some 240 Jurors are needed.
    2. The Jury Administrator select 500 to 600 citizens at random and summon them. The Garnd Jurors may punish those who DO NOT show up for The Jury Dury (thus Jury Duty is thus a small scale military duty).
    3. Of the 600 citizens who have showed up, the Jury Administrator will randomly select 20 and assign them for the 1st case. Then he will randomly select 20 and assign them the second case and so forth. And the remaining ones may go home.
    4. Out of the 20 citizens, the complainer and accused policeman may dismiss 4 citizens each
    5. The remaining 12 citizens will form the Jury for that case


  6. The complainer and accused will present the evidences, witnesses and arguments alternatively for 1 hour each. The trial will go on 7 hours each day with 1 hour lunch break. During the hour that the complainer/accused have, they may present ANY evidence, witness etc they may seem fit.

  7. The next date of the hearing will be decided by the Jurors by majority voting

  8. When over 6 out of 12 Jurors declare that they have heard enough arguments, or when 1 party rests the case, the trial will end after two days.

  9. At the end of the trial, the Jurors will deliberate for 3 hours atleast or when over 6 out of 12 Jurors declare that deliberations should end, in which case, it would end 1 hour after the decision.

  10. At the end of the dliberation, each Juror will declare his decision in the court.

  11. In the specific case of Trial By Jury against Policemen, each Juror will declare one of the following 5 options a)No punishment b)Fine of 1 salary c)Fine of 6 salaries d)fine of 12 salaries e)Transfer

  12. If over 8 out of 12 citizens agree on options b-e, then that officer will be fined or else he will be acquitted without any punishment.

  13. After 3 punitive transfer verdicts, the officer will be expelled.

  14. A policeman CANNOT be expelled/transferred without a Jury Trial. Thus Jury System also protects the policeman from arbitrary orders of the executive.


How is 'Explusion by Jury' a better procdure than 'Expulsion by officers/judges'

     The current procedure to expel a policeman is as follows : If a citizen has a complain, evidences etc, he may take the case before a judge or senior IAS/IPS officer. Mostly, there is a departmental inquiry by 1-5 senior officers and based on the findings of the inquiries, officers/judges may expel the policemen or they may not. The whole system is worthless --- there is intense nexus amongts policemen/judges and due to the nexuses, even the policemen who have killed common prisoners in custody DO NOT get punished at all.

     One thing is more than assured is that the 12 citizens who are chosen at random DO NOT have any apriory nexus or acquintance with complainer or the policemen. So compared to departmental inquiries by officers, there will far far higher nexuslessness and thus Jury Trials will be fairer than existing departmental inquiries.


How to enact such procedures?

     Not to mention, installing these procedures in various depratments would need seperate Legislations in City Councils, Assemblies and Parliament. Now if citizens are NOT interested in such Legislations, then there should be no such laws to begin with. But even if citizens are interested in such laws, I dont think Councilors, MLAs and MPs of today or future would show much interest, as they are too busy serving the nexuses they have. IMO, citizens are better-off first creating procedures such as LM.01 , LM.02 and, LM.03 , and then pass the legislations to enact the Jury-based review procedures.



Next : Review by Jury