- 68 % citizens say appointments in judiciary not transparent
- 80% citizens want civil society to be represented on NJAC
- 54% citizens want law minister to be also on NJAC
The Indian Judicial System is one of the oldest legal systems in the world today. It is part of the inheritance India received from the British after more than 200 years of their Colonial rule, and the same is obvious from the many similarities the Indian legal system shares with the English Legal System. The frame work of the current legal system has been laid down by the Indian Constitution and the judicial system derives its powers from it.
The government has been contemplating a change in the appointment of Judges through a National Judicial Appointment Commission. LocalCircles, India’s largest citizen engagement platform, decided to do a survey on the government’s plan to revamp appointments.
K Yatish Rajawat, senior journalist and advisor to LocalCircles.com, says, “The subject of judicial appointments, the current and proposed structure for it was discussed along with a 3 point poll in the 200,000 strong citizen communities for governance. The National Judicial Appointment Commission was also discussed under the proposed approach.”
The overall objective of the exercise is to enable citizen participation in making the judicial system of India broad based, transparent, fair and objective while keeping it 100% independent from any Political or Government influence.
More than 15,000 citizens participating in poll and several more gave in their comments in the discussions. This is the largest poll on this issue as typically polls have a very small sample. Here sample size is very large and evenly spread across age group and geography.
We have summarized the poll results below:
Question #1 – Is the current process of appointment and promotion of judges from lower to higher courts, a transparent process? (15000+ votes) 
Question # 2 – Should the Government have representation in the National Judicial Appointment Commission through the Law Minister? The other members being 3 Judges and 2 eminent citizens. (15000+ votes) 
Question # 3 – Do you support the representation of civil society in the NJAC? (15000+ votes) 
On the 3
rd poll, an additional discussion was conducted seeking the criteria for an Eminent Citizen as it relates to the National Judicial Appointment Commission.
Below is a summary of the key recommendations made by the collective citizen community.
Criteria lay out by Citizens for Eminent Persons to be on NJAC coming out from the discussion: - The person should be an Indian citizen and not a foreign national
- They should atleast have an undergraduate degree
- The person should not be an Ex-bureaucrat nor a Government beneficiary
- The person should have never been a practicing lawyer/judge
- The person should have never been attached to a political party
- The person should not have a business/professional conflict of interest by being on NJAC
- There should be no cases of corruption or malpractice against these eminent persons
- They must be reputed with an impeccable image
- These individuals should have demonstrated high ethical standards
- They should have contributed immensely to the nation in any field
- Track record from a socially relevant field should be preferred
- These could also be retired humble individuals, who are still working for the betterment of the Society/Nation without any personal benefit.
Photo Caption: Question #1 - Is the current process of appointment and promotion of judges from lower to higher courts, a transparent process? (15000+ votes) Question # 2 – Should the Government have representation in the National Judicial Appointment Commission through the Law Minister? The other members being 3 Judges and 2 Eminent citizens. (15000+ votes) Question # 3 – Do you support the representation of civil society in the NJAC? (15000+ votes)
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