Poor's access to justice

NEEDLESS to say,ensuring justice  to  poor multitudes  in our country should be a part and parcel of  our quest for establishing  a  rights based society. While there are efforts to alleviate poverty,implying a modicum of economic justice,they remain vulnerable to other forms of injustices in the social arena.

A survey on the poor under a DFID supported Community Legal Service(CLS) programme  has revealed  that  95 percent  are unable to lodge FIR and 73 percent  to file a general diary.More than inability ,the issues are lack of awareness of their rights , procedures and diffidence at the other end to extend a helping hand –that's how we will diagnose the inadequacies.

Awareness building and legal aid  will help mitigate  the circumstances  up to a point.  Yet considering that the outreach of the formal legal system is more or less limited, there is a marked preference amongst the poor forAlternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).The traditional local justice system,known as  Salish,though popular is yet to dispense  fair ,objective and impartial verdict  in general because of  the influence of the rural elite and the reality of local power structure.What we have often witnessed is the degeneracy of  salish into coercive  and tyrannical method of issuing socalled fatwa.

All these point to the need for  a reformed ,modernized ,legally sound and user-friendly alternative  dispute resolution system .Simultaneously,NGOs  should  strive to empower, with government's help,women and marginalised people to access equitable justice  and defend their rights.