New Delhi, Oct 28 Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday said a judgment cannot foresee every difficulty that may arise when its directions are put into practice, stressing that judges from different legal systems must keep sharing practical experience, including lessons learnt from setbacks.
Delivering the inaugural address at the fourth Law and Constitution Dialogue at the B R Ambedkar International Centre here, the CJI launched the NXT Judicial Forum, the NXT Judicial Fellowships and The Sunday Guardian’s ‘Legally Speaking’ edition.
“A judgment resolves a dispute and declares the law, confining itself to the conclusion and the reasons behind it. That discipline allows a judgment to be relied upon across the world, but it also means that a judgment cannot foresee every difficulty that may arise when its directions are put into practice,” the CJI said.
“Justice is strengthened not only by what courts decide, but by how freely we discuss the way they work,” he said.
Justice Kant noted that the Forum’s objectives describe existing judicial gatherings as too often “overly ceremonial or speech-oriented”.
He joked that the first thing the Forum had asked of him was a speech and that he would try to ensure his did not “end up as Exhibit A”.
The CJI said it was easy to bring distinguished minds into one hall for an evening but far harder to give their conversation “a life after the hall has emptied”.
Explaining why judges need to keep meeting when their judgments are already published and studied worldwide, the CJI cited the Supreme Court’s 2018 Constitution Bench ruling that recognised the right to die with dignity and allowed people to make a “living will”.
He said the court had required every such document to be countersigned by a judicial magistrate and approved by two separate medical boards. Doctors found the process too cumbersome “at that very moment when patients and their families needed it most”.
The Supreme Court, therefore, simplified the guidelines in 2023, allowing a notary or gazetted officer to attest the document and asking the medical boards to decide, preferably within 48 hours, he said.
The lesson of how “a safeguard designed in a courtroom works at a hospital bedside” would be invaluable to any court addressing similar questions, CJI Kant said.
On the use of artificial intelligence in courts, Justice Kant said every judiciary was now considering how far AI could assist with research, translation and the scheduling of cases, and “none can claim long experience in the matter”.
“Since all of us are learning at the same time, it makes little sense for each court to learn alone,” he said.
(PTI News)
