Not the sort of development that you’ll be seeing in China anytime in the near future..
If India keeps making these tweaks and eventually lets foreign law firms practice in the country it really will develop into the regions legal industry powerhouse and leave the rest standing.. HK & Singapore will become the boutique / luxury end of the market.. but we see no reason why India won’t be able to dominate the regions’ legal market by the end of this decade.
It might be a big ask .. but as you’ll see below the signs illustrate that things are constantly moving in the right direction for transparency in law
India Talkies reports..
Chief Justice of India office in RTI ambit: high court
New Delhi, Jan 12 ? In a landmark judgment, the Delhi High Court Tuesday upheld a single bench order that the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) comes within the purview of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, observing that openness is the ?best disinfectant?.
A full bench comprising Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justices S. Muralidhar and Vikramjit Sen said: ?Accountability of the judiciary cannot be seen in isolation. It must be viewed in the context of a general trend to render governors answerable to the people in ways that are transparent, accessible and effective. Democracy expects openness and openness is concomitant of free society. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.?
During the pronouncement of the judgment, the judges assured that they too would declare their assets next week.
?Information is a currency that every citizen requires to participate in the life and governance of the society,? the bench said in its 88-page judgment.
Stressing that declaration of assets is a requirement that is not being introduced for the first time, the bench said: ?As far as subordinate judges are concerned, they have for long been required to do that year after year in terms of the rules governing their conditions of service. As regards accountability and independence, it cannot possibly be contended that a judicial magistrate at the entry level in the judicial hierarchy is any less accountable or independent than the judge of the high court or the Supreme Court.?
?While it is obvious that the degree of accountability and answerability of a high court judge or a Supreme Court judge can be no different from that of a magistrate, it can well be argued that the higher the judge is placed in the judicial hierarchy, the greater the standard of accountability and the stricter the scrutiny of accountability of such mechanism.?
Full article at? http://www.indiatalkies.com/2010/01/chief-justice-india-office-rti-ambit-high-court.html
