The case for increasing the retirement age of judges

The case for increasing the retirement age of judges

Article:

1. Santosh Paul, an advocate in the Supreme Court discusses the reasons for increasing the retirement age of judges in India and he also compared it with western countries.

 Important Analysis:

2. The increasing the age of retirement for judges was featured in the Venkatachaliah Report (Report of the National Commission to review the working of the Constitution) in 2002.
3. In 2010 further attempts were made to bring the Constitution (114^thAmendment) Bill to raise the retirement age of High Court judges to 65 from 62 years.
4. The idea of increasing the retirement age of judges once again  brought into sharp focus by Justice Kurian Joseph of the Supreme Court
5. Advantages of increasing the retirement age of judges:

• It will bring the Indian judiciary in line with the norm worldwide.
• It will ensure the continued presence of a strong talent pool of experienced judges.
• New judges can be appointment without displacing existing judges.
• It will address the problem of mounting arrears of pending cases.
• It will be a buffer against impending litigation explosion.
• It will render post-retirement assignments unattractive; as a result; strengthen the rule of law and independence of judiciary.

6. Need for increasing the retirement age:

Presently, the judge-population ratio in India is among the lowest in the world at 19.66 judges per million (10 lakh) people. However, the western nations like U.K had 51 judges per million people in 2016. The figure stood at 107, 41, and 75 for U.S., Australia, and Canada respectively.

• It is also necessary to increase the number of judges in the pool to enable the judiciary to deal with the enormous pendency of cases.
• According to National Judicial Data Grid Data, more than 2.84 crore cases are pending in the subordinate courts, 43 lakh cases are pending before the High Court, and 57, 987 cases are pending before the Supreme Court.
• As the India economy grows, the ratio of litigation to population will increase exponentially.
• Advance economies such as Australia, Canada, France, the U.S. and U.K, and Japan have much higher litigation to-population ratios.

7. Comparison with western countries:

• Most Western liberal democracies of the world have retirement age of around 70 for judges.
• In the Supreme Court of U.S., and in constitutional courts in Austria and Greece, judges are appointed for life.
• In Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Australia, the retirement age for judges is 70 years.
• Judges in Canada and Germany retire at 75 and 68 , respectively.

8. Way ahead:

• According to the author, the issue of increasing the retirement age of judges thus requires serious consideration beyond partisan politics.
• It is a high time to deal with pending cases as arrears before the 24 High Courts in India for periods as long as 10-20 years.
• Pendency of cases not only debilitate the justice redress system;it also make the rule of law a distant dream.