Administration of justice is joint venture of judiciary-executive

Srinagar, July 29 (UNI) Stressing that the administration of justice was ''a joint venture,'' Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said it requires the executive to give primacy to the judiciary by strengthening its hands and allow it to equip itself with men and means in the performance of its functions.

The responsibility of members of the judiciary is to ensure that the justice delivery system is pure, untainted by extra judicial considerations, inspires confidence in the hearts of the common man and evoke respect in the minds of ordinary folks,'' Mr Azad said in his speech at the diamond jubilee celebration of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court here.

Noting that there was a time when the executive had a hand in the process of judicial appointments, he said the law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in 1993, changed all that.

''That decision represents in a sense the desire of the court to perhaps embrace a more effective system of judicial appointments. It also represents a tendency in courts to wrest the initiative from the executive in the hope that they can do this better. History alone will tell whether such endeavours are consistent with our constitutional scheme'', he said.

''We applaud the judiciary for cleaning the polluting environment, just as we have reservations about the long arm of the judiciary in matters in which parliament and the legislature alone are constitutionally charged with the responsibility to act, he added.

''Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers'' is what US justice Learned Hand said. But in the complexity of societal interactions rights must have boundaries and justice must demark it frontiers''.

Quoting George Eliot ''that Justice is like the kingdom of God it is not without us as a fact it is within us a great yearning'', Mr Azad said that the process of law is constantly challenged by developments in society and hallmark of an effective and responsive judicial system is the ability of those who are part of the justice delivery system in meeting challenges keeping in mind that the heart of the system is the integrity of an individual consistent with community interest.

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