Judges and the Summer Vacations

Got to reading a take that that courts do not have to shut down for a vacation as is suggestively referred to. The take is critical about judges taking a vacation when very important legal issues are begging for attention. The author takes two cases to push home the larger issue that in a country where docket burst is a constant threat to the legitimacy of our legal system, a holiday by the judges and a closure of the courts is illogical. To further press home the point the author goes on to suggest that if courts have a holiday so could police stations and registration offices. Sounds attractive at first blush and very popular to suggest that with so many cases ( 67,320) in the Supreme court, a vacation is a luxury that the common man cannot understand.
We need to understand how the system works. We have no clue of the work load a supreme court judge takes upon himself when he hears a single case leave alone about 100 cases a day on admission days. We have no clue that baskets full of paper books reach the residence of a judge every evening and the judge every evening (reads right up to midnight and later) the files. This is a day’s work. It is a little more taxing than writing an article every day for a newspaper and airing an opinion!! The judge not only reads the bulk of papers before him but further constantly upgrades his knowledge repository with the march of law which in itself is dynamic and ever changing and thus a long drawn process in itself.
It is easy to see the outside world of a judge or for that matter a lawyer. Judges and lawyers keep very tough hours. They are required to put in far more labour than is visible or the results of a case show. We have all seen those leather bound books stalked up in a lawyers chamber. To have a nodding acquaintance with the content therein and a recall connectivity calls for a kind of application that many are blissfully unaware of. It is all very fine to compare the profession of a judge with the clerk who register births and deaths and suggest that they both do important work so how come one takes a holiday and the other…. Lets get two things right here. The staff in the Registration office as the staff in the police station also takes a holiday. Since they are not skeletally staffed, the system runs dehorse the in house absentees. This is not true about our judiciary. Also the compare is the proverbial apples and oranges paradigm and therefore to be best left unpersued.
We seem concerned, and rightly about the 67,320 cases. The judges need to give each of these (each a saga of human grievance) individual attention along with the sensitivity of law and socio economic considerations. This calls for a certain level of convenience and cannot be compared with the rest. A sub aerial view of the matter is sufficient to fault the seeming injustice in keeping the matters pending for over two months. The judges are human beings. Till our system gets robotic or mechanical and until the system depends on the sensitivity of the judge, let us realise that the judges collective referred to as the court require to be handled with a sensitivity beyond the compare under discussion.
The author of the critique would perhaps be happy to know that our High Court for instance is required to work till 4.15 p.m. every day but atelast half a dozen of them work till the dusk has settled to the magnificent structure. He may be further happy to note that in the vacation court, the other day judges were hearing cases even at 10 pm. I do not know of a registering office doing that. The studies of compare like the laws of elasticity have their limits. Judges and by implication the system are heavily burdened. The judge –population ration and/or lawyer litigant ration would show the nation in poor light globally speaking. The judiciary is often doing its job and doubling up for failure of the other two wings. To accuse it of under work is the last of the criticism that should be hurled at it. We tread with ease when we know not the quality of the gravel that we are walking on!!
L. Ravichander.