Manmohan Singh emphasises need for bold initiatives for development

Hyderabad, Feb 7 (ANI): The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Monday said constitutional democracy that provides socio- political and economic justice to all, would be the best choice for emerging economies.

Addressing legal luminaries after inaugurating the 17th Commonwealth Law Conference in Hyderabad, Dr. Singh said: " Considering the reality and scale of conflict, deprivation and exploitation that affect the lives of millions and millions of people in the developing countries, they need to take bold and imaginative measures to pursue the path of development with social economic growth and to pursue the path of development with a human face."

He said bold initiatives must be taken to pursue the path of development with human face while keeping in view the lives of millions of people in developing countries.

Stating that democracy and legal empowerment are kindred spirits, Dr. Manmohan Singh emphasised the need to adopt legal empowerment measures to provide the poor the access to affordable legal services.

"This is also a thought which justice Kapadia outlined in his address. At the same time, it is imperative to adopt legal empowerment measures which foster and institutionalize the access of the poor to legal services so that they know about available legal safeguards and are able to take advantage of them at affordable cost," he added.

The Prime Minister also said the role of courts and judges in making law an instrument of social stability should not be over emphasised.

"We are today witness to the evolution of India's own constitutional jurisprudence through a series of landmark decisions of our Supreme Court, sometimes invited through public interest and sometimes through social action litigation," he said.

"We find that in interpreting laws, our judges have also widened and deepened their scope and reach as law givers. This has also been the case in the evolution of law in other constitutional and parliamentary democracies," he added.

He said judicial process has a dynamic role to play in providing justice to litigants and uphold the constitutional system. (ANI)