Distrusting a system is not a problem at all, it is a sure sign of democratic progress: Former Orissa HC Chief Justice S. Muralidhar

Former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court S. Muralidhar, who chairs the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, speaks to Sarath Babu George about international humanitarian law, India’s position on Palestine, the ability of international institutions to hold powerful States accountable, judicial independence, constitutional offices, civil liberties and the Gen Z protests.

India has historically supported the Palestinian cause while maintaining strategic relations with Israel. From the standpoint of international law, how should India navigate this relationship? India will have its own compulsions.

But there is a bottom line that we should never allow to be crossed. Here, the bottom line is international humanitarian law. We should not be among those countries that find it acceptable that children are dying of starvation or that children are dying for want of medical aid.

I don’t think India is that kind of a country. It has never held itself out to be that kind of a country. If it is supporting the Palestinian cause, it should be deeply distressed by what is happening. And when it negotiates with Israel, it should place this at the forefront, express its disapproval of such actions, and take it from there.

Do you think international institutions such as the International Criminal Court are still capable of restraining powerful States when geopolitical interests run strongly in the opposite direction? The International Criminal Court is under a great deal of stress and pressure because sanctions have been imposed by the United States on its judges.

This is very, very unfortunate. The rest of the world community, apart from making token protests, is doing very little about it. That is not a good sign. We expect all these international adjudicative bodies to be truly independent and free of political pressure.

One hopes that this will change. We want all these systems to work. It is in the interest of countries such as India, countries in Africa and countries in South America, which are under tremendous geopolitical pressure, to have a mechanism where we can ask for answers.

We must be able to hold governments and individuals within those governments accountable. There must be some forum where that can be done. So, it is very important, in the interest of all nations, that these mechanisms, whether the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, are allowed to work fearlessly and truly independently.

Do you think the Indian judiciary today enjoys the level of institutional trust that it did a decade ago? What, in your view, has changed? I don’t think there has been a shift in the overall level of trust in the judiciary.

Perhaps the judiciary has not always been able to meet the expectations that people have of it at different points in time. But there are also moments when it gives people hope. So, I would call it a mixed record; it is not a consistent one.

People continue to come to the courts. There is also an element of choicelessness in coming to the courts. When you criminalise more and more ordinary activities, such as protests, people are bound to face the coercive element of the law and are forced to go to court.

So, filings have gone up. If you go merely by the number of cases being filed, you cannot say that people have lost faith in the judiciary. Q: There has, however, been growing apprehension about the independence of the courts -- from judicial appointments to the manner in which governments respond to judgments.

What are the most serious institutional pressures facing the judiciary today? We have to look at the judiciary at three levels. I invariably emphasise that the district judiciary is far less independent than perhaps the High Courts or the Supreme Court ought to be.