THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE PROJECT
ONLINE CONSULTATION
| E-Conference Homepage | Contents |
| Next comment | Previous comment | Previous comment in thread | Next comment in thread |
From: Nupur Chowdhury
Affiliation: lawyer, TERI
Remote Name: dsl-del-static-051.161.144.59.touchtelindia.net
Time: 10:37:32 +0100
The issue which should be targeted is that of access to justice and the how does the judicial system address this issue and not the judiciary itself. My contention is that the imperfections are very much systemic in nature and therefore the object of the inquiry should be the principles of procedural justice- for the following reasons: - the litigation system is adversarial in nature and thus provides at best, limited participation of stakeholders that are indirectly affected in the long term by the judicial decision. this limitation has however been recognized by the judiciary and they have used their suo moto powers to summon stakeholders other than those party to the litigation. - Most of the access and ownership rights to forest resources that underlies the tribal livelihood system are part of customary law. Though the evidence act recognizes oral evidence it gives preference to written evidence - moreover in most cases there are conflicting versions of oral evidence - thus jeopardizing their legal validity. Thus it is the judicial system or its structure that severly limits the funcitoning of the judiciary in taking into consideration livelihood impacts in the application of the precautionary principle.
[_borders/disc6_aftr.htm]