Newsletter on Indian and International Legal Affairs An initiative of RMN Foundation humanitarian organization VOL. I | ISSUE 2 | October 2018
Legal Directions Law Simplified By Rakesh Raman
Photo: Rashtrapati Bhavan
Ranjan Gogoi Inherits Stained Legacy at Supreme Court of India The President of India has appointed Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the Chief Justice of India. He assumed the office on October 3, 2018 after the retirement of Justice Dipak Misra. Gogoi – who has become the 46th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India – has a mammoth task at hand to clean the image of Indian judiciary which was sullied during Misra’s tenure. In April, 64 Rajya Sabha MPs of different political parties had submitted a notice to remove Misra from his position on 5 charges of misconduct. The step was taken after the controversial decision on judge B. H. Loya’s death delivered by the Supreme Court. There have also been internal rumblings resulting in open discord amongst judges in the Supreme Court. This was manifested when four senior-most judges held a press conference on January 12, 2018 where they publicly expressed their disquiet about the manner in which the Chief Justice Misra was exercising his powers. Gogoi was among the four dissenters.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
2
IN THIS ISSUE How to Make Smart Legal Contracts Who Receives the Highest U.S. Judicial Honor Award Legal Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform Supreme Court Judgment on Aadhaar Digital Neva Connects Legislatures and Citizens Pending Cases in the Courts of India Report on Access to Justice Commissions Marketing Techniques for Solo Legal Practitioners Corruption Research Project of National Law University Delhi Asia Pro Bono Conference UN Human Rights Report on India Consultative Paper on Indian Politics
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
3
UNESCO Launches Education for Justice Initiative The Education for Justice (E4J) initiative seeks to prevent crime and promote a culture of lawfulness through education activities designed for primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. These activities are being implemented in the framework of UNESCO's ongoing work relating to Global Citizenship Education and are designed to support the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, a component of UNODC's Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration.
Photo: UN
The partnership directly contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 4 (in particular target 4.7) and 16, calling for quality education and the building of peace, justice, and strong institutions. These activities will help educators teach the next generation to better understand and address problems that can undermine the rule of law and encourage students to actively engage in their communities and future professions in this regard.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
4
Accord Project to Help Law Firms Make Smart Legal Contracts The Accord Project is a community initiative to develop an industry-led specification and open source technology for smart legal contracts. It is based on industry-driven requirements for transactional legal practice and dispute resolution and counts leading enterprise blockchain platforms such IBM Blockchain, R3's Corda, Symbiont, and Sweetbridge amongst its partners and collaborators. The Accord Project is the organization for the development of techno-legal specifications for smart legal contracts and distributed ledger applications in the legal industry. The purpose of the Project is to enable lawyers, law firms, trade associations, and corporates to help establish open implementations for the future of contracting. The Project operates in collaboration with IEEE, the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management, Hyperledger, R3, Decentralized Identity Foundation, and a number of leading trade associations, industry and standards organizations, and leading law firms.
Judge Breyer to Receive the Highest U.S. Judicial Honor Award Judge Charles R. Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will be the recipient of the prestigious 34th Annual Devitt Award, said to be the highest honor bestowed upon Article III federal judge. The ceremony and celebration will take place on November 7, 2018 at the Supreme Court of the United States in the presence of the Supreme Court Justices and 100 invited guests. As brother of Justice Stephen Breyer, this is the first time that a relation of any Justice of the Supreme Court will receive the Devitt. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy chaired this year's selection committee which included Judge Raymond Kethledge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The committee deliberated over two days in New York City along with the award sponsor, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation executives. Photo: The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
5
BYU Law Launches Legal Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform BYU Law, a leading national law school in the U.S., has announced the launch of its Law and Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform, including three new and historically significant corpora. This first-of-its-kind platform for the legal community aims to advance the field of law and corpus linguistics, a methodology that uses naturally occurring language in large collections of texts called "corpora" to help determine the meaning of words and phrases. The Law and Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform features a user-friendly interface offering the ability to search these groundbreaking corpora by terms and phrases with filters for year, primary author, genre (legal or non-legal document, court proceeding, speech, diary entry, novel, etc.) and source. The corpora also support collocation searches, which enable the user to gain powerful insights into word meanings and relationships between words.
Supreme Court of India Upholds the Validity of Aadhaar In its 1,448-page verdict delivered on September 26, the Supreme Court of India observed that the national identification scheme Aadhaar is needed in the country, as it empowers the underprivileged sections of the society. Upholding the validity of Aadhaar in a four-one majority judgment, the court allowed the use of Aadhaar for access to government welfare schemes. However, it put certain limitations on the use of Aadhaar biometric data collected from more than one billion citizens of India. Now Aadhaar will not be mandatory for bank accounts, mobile phone connections, and school admissions. The court judgment added that citizens will have to link Aadhaar number to their PAN (Permanent Account Number) for filing tax returns. The court’s verdict came in response to 27 petitions that had challenged the validity of Aadhaar. The bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra pronounced that Aadhaar would be voluntary, while the users will have the option to exit. According to the judgment, no person will be denied the benefits of social welfare schemes even when their Aadhaar details are not authenticated. It is said that Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act 2016 which allows private companies and third-party entities to collect Aadhaar data to provide consumer services has been struck down as unconstitutional.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
6
The court also read down Section 33(1) to grant individuals an opportunity of being heard before disclosure of their information. It also has struck down Section 33(2) altogether which means that now Aadhaar data cannot be shared with security agencies in the name of upholding national security.
Aadhaar in India. Photo: UIDAI
Moreover, in consonance with its landmark judgment on privacy last year, the court also ruled that authentication record should not include metadata and records cannot be kept beyond a period of six months, reducing the time period from 5 years. Aadhaar is a 12-digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on behalf of the Government of India. This number serves as an optional proof of identity and address, anywhere in India.
What is the International Court of Justice? The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It was established by the United Nations Charter, signed in 1945 at San Francisco (United States), and began work in 1946 in the Peace Palace, The Hague (Netherlands). The Court, which is composed of 15 judges, has a dual role: in accordance with international law, settling legal disputes between States submitted to it by them and giving advisory opinions
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
7
on legal matters referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. Only States are eligible to appear before the Court in contentious cases. At present, this basically means the 192 United Nations Member States. The Court has no jurisdiction to deal with applications from individuals, non-governmental organizations, corporations or any other private entity. It cannot provide them with legal counselling or help them in their dealings with the authorities of any State whatever. However, a State may take up the case of one of its nationals and invoke against another State the wrongs which its national claims to have suffered at the hands of the latter; the dispute then becomes one between States. The official languages of the Court are English and French. Courtesy: ICJ
Digital Neva to Bring Legislatures Closer to Indian Citizens India’s Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs organized a two-day orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) in Delhi. This was the first workshop on NeVA, which aims to make all the Legislatures of the country paperless by making the proceedings of the Houses digital. It is an attempt to provide the information about the functioning of House to the common citizen at the click of a button. The iOS and Google app of NeVA along with the NeVA website will act as a repository of data related to the business of all Legislatures in the country in a uniform manner. NeVA is expected to bring Legislatures closer to citizens, thereby taking a decisive step in achievement of substantive democracy. Once the program is operational, details of 5,379 Members from the 40 Legislatures will be uploaded on the portal. A total of 113,337 questions, 25,662 notices, 1,708 Bills, 515 committee reports and 10,043 papers from the Legislatures will become available in public domain on NeVA app and website. Addressing the gathering of over 200 delegates from 29 States and Union Territories, representing 36 Legislatures across the country, minister Vijay Goel congratulated the team of Union Ministry of Parliamentary affairs for spearheading the NeVA initiative as well as the Assembly of Himachal Pradesh for taking the lead in adopting digitization.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
8
Pending Cases in the Courts of India While the administration has completely collapsed, the Indian politicians and bureaucrats do not take decisions to resolve public problems. They keep throwing written public complaints from one desk to another. Consequently, the harassed citizens are left with no other option but to approach the courts. As courts are always overcrowded, their decisions are either inordinately delayed or lack justice. Today, there are nearly 33 million (3.3 crore) pending cases in different courts of India. Of these, 2.84 crore cases are in the subordinate courts, 43 lakh are in the High Courts, and about 58,000 in the Supreme Court. Pending Cases in the Courts of India Subordinate Courts
High Courts
Supreme Court
28,400,000
4,300,000
58,000
Total: 33,000,000
Report Released on Access to Justice Commissions The American Bar Association (ABA) Resource Center for Access to Justice Initiatives has announced the release of a first-of-its-kind report examining access to justice commissions nationwide. It offers an in-depth analysis of their structures, activities, staffing, and funding, as well as best-practice recommendations. The Resource Center for Access to Justice (ATJ) Initiatives serves judicial, private bar, and legal aid leaders who work together to provide people of low and modest income with meaningful access to their justice systems.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
9
The Center supports the growth and development of state-based Access to Justice Commissions. It also collects and analyzes data on the various sources of funding for civil legal aid.
Write for Legal Directions Newsletter RMN Foundation has launched Legal Directions which is a monthly newsletter on Indian and international legal affairs. Currently, the newsletter project is being managed by Mr. Rakesh Raman who is a national award-winning journalist and founder of RMN Foundation. Legal Directions i nvites legal professionals, advocates, teachers, and students to contribute their editorial articles for the newsletter. You may please submit the articles with your brief profile to Mr. Rakesh Raman (Email: contact@rmnfoundation.org). Students from all across the world are also invited to participate as volunteers in this project.
Lawyer Marketing: A Playbook for One-Attorney Shop
Client Acquisition Strategies for the Solo Practitioner: This marketing guide promises to help solo practitioners get new clients with innovative client acquisition strategies.
The topics in the playbook include website creation to attract new clients, gaining your prospect's trust online, creating a face-to-face experience to close the deals, and working without any staff.
Justice Department Hosts Cybersecurity Industry Event The U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division hosted a cybersecurity roundtable discussion on the challenges in handling data breach investigations. Assistant Attorney General Brian A.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
10
Benczkowski of the Criminal Division delivered opening remarks and served as moderator for the event. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of the Department’s National Security Division and officials from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, the White House’s National Security Council and U.S. Department of Homeland Security also delivered remarks at the event. In February of this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had established a Cyber-Digital Task Force, which published its first report in July. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the cyber-enabled threats confronting the nation, and catalogs ways in which the Justice Department combats those threats, including by partnering with the private sector. “Public-private partnerships addressing cybercrime play a critical role in our efforts to hold criminals accountable for data breaches,” said Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.
Cybersecurity Roundtable Discussion: Photo: Justice Department
As part of the event, the Cybersecurity Unit released a new document providing even more comprehensive guidance that reflects input the Unit received during its outreach efforts. The revised guidance addresses new issues like working with incident response firms, cloud computing, ransomware, and information sharing.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
11
National Law University Delhi Launches Corruption Research Project The Centre for Transparency and Accountability in Governance (CTAG), National Law University, Delhi - in collaboration with the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation - has launched a research project to compile an exclusive report on corruption in India. The unique selling proposition (USP) of this report will be to sensitize different stakeholders in India and abroad about the limitations of the Indian governments in deploying information-driven processes to deal with corruption, although it will also cover traditional aspects. You are invited to join the project as volunteers to manage its diverse activities such as research, public relations, content creation, data management, project monitoring, and so on. It will be a 4-month project beginning October 2018. Last date to apply: October 15, 2018. Candidates can contact Mr. Rakesh Raman, founder, RMN Foundation (Email: contact@rmnfoundation.org) with their contact details and a brief profile.
Annual Conference on EU Criminal Justice 2018 Organized by the Academy of European Law, the annual conference will be held on October 18 - 19, 2018. It will allow legal practitioners to learn current developments and future initiatives in the field of EU criminal justice. Top representatives of EU institutions, academics, and experts will discuss the key aspects related to freedom, security, and justice. Contact Academy of European Law Metzer Allee 4 Trier, 54295, Germany. Email: info@era.int
2018 Asia Pro Bono Conference The Asia Pro Bono Conference (APBC) is a key event in the region for stakeholders to develop, explore and share pro bono initiatives and projects that strengthen access to justice in Asia and internationally. This year, the APBC will be held in Hong Kong from October 25 - 27, 2018.
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
12
Contact Association of Corporate Counsel ACC Hong Kong Secretariat. Email: info@hkcca.net
UN Report Condemns Indian Government for Attacks on NGOs The UN Human Rights organization has released a report that has criticized the Indian government for its attacks on human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The report reveals various cases of reprisal by the government as a revenge to NGOs’ cooperation with the UN Human Rights Committee. Civil society organizations human rights defenders, NGOs and civil society groups from nearly 40 States are named in the report.
UN Human Rights Report
“The horrendous impact on the victim and their families aside, reprisals against people for cooperating with the UN sends a chilling message to others of what will happen if they do the
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
13
same thing,” Assistant-Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour said in September. Echoing the UN Secretary-General’s conclusions in the report, Gilmour reaffirmed that “Any act of intimidation or reprisal for cooperation with the United Nations is unacceptable and runs contrary to the principles of the Organization, and much more can be done, by all of us.”
Observations
Despite some progress in poverty reduction, growing inequality is a global challenge. We must tackle the root causes, including laws that discriminate and marginalize. ~ United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres
Poverty, gender inequalities, bonded labor, trafficking, displacement of refugees are some of the challenges to human rights protection. There is a need of creating widespread awareness of the public and strengthening constitutional and legal provisions which thereby provide extensive system of checks and balances. ~ Justice H. L. Dattu, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission of India
India: A Democracy or Parliamentary Dictatorship? A new consultative paper - that you can download - states that in its current deformed form,
the democracy in India has taken the shape of parliamentary dictatorship. Now there is a need to create a system that can usher in an egalitarian society. Among its other findings, it says a
Legal Directions: Newsletter on International Legal Affairs by RMN Foundation. October 2018
14
major paradox in the elections is that majority of the voters don’t elect but they reject the party that forms the government. According to the paper, people elect the candidates without analyzing their capabilities and then keep complaining during their tenures till the next elections. Today, India is the largest country in the world that is struggling to protect the democratic fiber in the nation because the country is facing a severe leadership crisis.
Meet the Editor The editor of this newsletter Rakesh Raman is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. Besides working at senior editorial positions with leading media companies, he was writing an exclusive edit-page column regularly for The Financial Express (a daily business newspaper of The Indian Express Group). Nowadays, for the past over 7 years, he has been running his own global news services on different subjects. He also has formed a free Education and Career Counselling Center for deserving children at a poor J.J. Colony in Dwarka, New Delhi under his NGO – RMN Foundation. Earlier, he had been associated with the United Nations (UN) through United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development. Contact Rakesh Raman Founder RMN Foundation 463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16, Sector 4 Dwarka, Phase I, New Delhi 110 078, India Contact by email