Ahmedabad: Newly appointed Chief Justice
of Gujarat High Court S J Mukhopadhyay today here said that
there was nothing above human rights.
"Today I don't know, if we are celebrating the Human
Rights Day or observing it," Justice Mukhopadhyay said during
a function held in the Gujarat High Court to celebrate the
Human Rights Day.
"I as a judge can only say that human rights is human
rights. No other thing can be above it. It is the human touch,
which is required to have decision in cases related to human
rights," he said.
"There has to be clarity in thought, if there is the
judge or any individual, whoever is required to do justice, it
is not only that judges do justice and rest do injustice. No.
Everybody is supposed to do justice," he added.
"Particularly we as judges, when we look into the matter,
we need to remind ourselves what is our position. Human touch
should be there while deciding the case, particularly, where
there is question of human right," Justice Mukhopadhyay said.
Guest of honour on the occasion, senior advocate and
human rights activist Girish Patel said that present judiciary
is facing three main challenges -- ideological, institutional
and functional.
Elaborating on his point, Patel said, first is the
ideological crisis, which is a conflict between two models of
development the socialist democratic model adopted by the
Indian Constitution and the model of free market economy of
capitalism.
"The challenge is that whether we should control and
reign in the globalised capitalism in order to secure the
basic rights of humans, or shall we re-orient and modify
fundamental right vis-a-vis the demand of globalised
capitalism," Patel said.
The second crisis according to Patel was institutional
namely nature of appointment of judges. "The appointment of
judges is non-transparent, nobody knows who appoints whom.
Also, accountability of judges is important and the types of
persons who are appointed," he added.
"Third is functional crisis, where the development of
higher judiciary is stunted," the senior advocate said.
Director of National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, Mohan
Gopal, on the occasion said that there was a symbiotic
relationship between judiciary and human rights.
He said that the major challenges that the judiciary
faces include relationship between human rights and
development.
"Are they incompatible? Does one have to be sacrificed
for the other. There are arguments submitted before the
judiciary that human rights need to be sacrificed for the sake
of development? If we look around we will find that part of
the world is more developed where human rights is most
protected," Gopal said.
Giving an example of China, he said, "China's increased
development has expanded its protection of human rights. China
has in the last 10 years strengthened its judiciary and it
today has 1.90 lakh judges as against 14,000 in India."
According to Gopal another challenge before judiciary is
can one fight crime and terrorism and still respect human
rights.
The third challenge was of individual human rights
versus the rights of groups. "Again when we look around the
world, those societies are most prosperous where individual
rights are the maximum," he added.
PTI
First Published: Friday, December 11, 2009, 00:31