Why in news
Inability of the National Democratic Alliance to reach a comfortable electoral milestone could be attributable, to its unfitting handling of legal issues
Continuous, informed, and empirically valid legal inputs to the government from well-structured think tanks could be vital in clarifying the real intent of certain legislation.
Recent legal issues
The electoral bonds scheme, was recently held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, for violating the right to information of voters
A similar exercise in relation to the Aadhaar Act, 2016, would also have made the intervention by the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2018) redundant
The transporter strike about the hit-and-run provisions under section 106(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita, 2023, is also a case in point
Role of National Law Universities
National law universities are equipped with the requisite expertise, knowledge, and resources to assist the Central and State governments in formulating constitutionally viable and socially acceptable laws
Regular research references in legislative areas proposed by national law universities would enable the governments to fully utilise their investments in academic institutions and their expertise.
Proposal for a Legal Advisory Council (LAC)
There is a case to be made for the establishment of a Legal Advisory Council (LAC) to the Prime Minister akin to the Economic Advisory Council (EAC)
The terms of reference of the LAC could include:
The legal analysis of issues referred to it by the Government of India,
the analysis of the possible impacts and outcomes of any contemplated law upon reference by the Prime Minister
suo motu legal research and analysis on issues of contemporary importance
The LAC could comprise legal luminaries, eminent jurists, prominent academicians, and researchers with specialisations in varied fields
Fields such as criminal law, trade law, international law, business laws, and taxation laws
Critique of the Law Commission of India (LCI)
The LCI primarily recommends reforms in existing laws, which makes its role reactive
But the LAC would function to anticipate the impact, challenges, and gap in forthcoming laws on which the government is deliberating and/or finalising legislation or policies.
Low level of engagement between the government and the LCI is the fact that despite an abundance of legal issues requiring in-depth research and analysis
only four reports were prepared by the 22nd Law Commission between 2020 and 2024 upon reference by the GoI
LCI has been ineffective since only 50% of their recommendations to date have been implemented.
Despite the legal problems in the justice system being pervasive, pressing, and varied, the LCI has on average produced only 4.19 reports per year
Law Commission of India (LCI)
LCI is neither a constitutional body nor a statutory body, it is an executive body established by an order of the Government of India
Its major function is to work for legal reforms
It is established for a fixed tenure and works as an advisory body to the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The first such Commission was established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833 under the Chairmanship of Lord Macaulay
which recommended codification of the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code
The Indian Code of Civil Procedure, the Indian Contract Act, the Indian Evidence Act, the Transfer of Property Act. etc. are products of the first four Law Commissions.
First Law Commission of Independent India in 1955 with the then Attorney-General of India, Mr M. C. Setalvad, as its Chairman.
Since then twenty two more Law Commissions have been appointed, each with a three-year term
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