The judiciary is sine qua non. Without an effective judiciary, anarchism and total chaos will follow a State of any type. The judiciary is to be totally impartial and unbiased. People of the highest order must head it.

The ideal requirements for appointment of a court official or a Judicial Officer is nothing short of the profile of a supernatural being or a demigod. There should be no doubt that the ideal Judicial Officer as desired, must be highly intelligent, unbiased, impartial, humane with the right and non-accommodating with the wrong under any circumstances, highly analytical and innovative, knowledgeable not only about the laws of the State but also about all other subjects of human knowledge, must be beyond any need or help and should be courageous and selfless. (Is it a description very difficult to fill ?)

All the Judicial Official must attend to their work without any interference, disturbance or instructions. The Judicial Officers must be subordinate only to the higher body known as High Court, a court of appeal for a particular Zone, and the High Court must be subordinate only to the body of eleven (or any other odd number arrived at after deliberation) highest most Judges headed by a Chief Justice and known as Supreme Court.

Having the perfect people to head the judicial department of a State, (without the aid of a perfect system) will not serve the purpose alone. The structure of appointment of Judicial Officers and dispensing of justice too should be equally perfect, least people will loose faith in justice and the Government at large. The loss of trust in judicial proceedings will reflect in all departments of the State (as is the present State). An odd Judicial Officer, here and there, acting more because of his personal guts, than any other reason, may not be able to change the scenario, it may kindle a ray of hope, but the broader change is the ultimate solution.

The slave mentality, dogmatism and intellectual bankrupcy of the policy makers is reflected by the fact that even though over 50 years have passed by since the foreign rulers left India, but still, even the uniform of the people practising law is not changed to the needs of the country. The layers still attire a black jacket/coat and a neck tie even in summer, when the temperature at times is above 45ºC in India. We must come out of this kind of mentality and must change at least the basic system to our needs.

The first and foremost change in the sequence is that the appointment of all level of Judicial Officers and/or Judges should be through a competition of merit and intelligence at all times. There should be no other criteria and standard. A nomination of a reputed or known advocate to the position of a Judge is nothing but a joke on democratic setup and more so on a independent judiciary.

This practice of nomination was adopted by the oppressors of my Country at the time of devising of a judicial system. This was done mainly because they wanted to be incharge of the most powerful institution of the State and wanted only those officers/Judges who would endorse to their views moreover at that time there was no qualified standard criteria for selection of even the people in the lowest or any court at any level. After the independence of my Country from the foreign oppressors, the aristocrats of my Country adopted more or less the same structure as it suited their purpose. As, at the time of independence most of the people incharge of the framing and drafting of the legal process were lawyers, aristocrat and big shots and they knew the power of judiciary. They knew that they would be in power and can manipulate the system to give power to people who speak their philosophy and can safeguard their interest. They preferred to include the clause of nomination of Judges in its vaguest form, so that it adds to their power. The framers of the Constitution preferred to safeguard the interest of a few including the political interest of that time (which is carried to this date) over the interest of millions, who in good faith, had given them power to act.

How can one expect the judiciary to be free and fair if such people are appointed as Judges, the dispensers of justice, who till some time back as a law practitioners had their biases and business interest. Who were in the profession of law for financial gains and interest, were members of parties and unions, supported a political ideology, had religious biases, asked political leaders for support for nomination for the post of Judge, and what not.

In any State where majority of the Judges are nominated (specially in the superintending courts), where the majority of Judges in a High Court are nominated and almost all the Judges of a Supreme Court are nominated (it wouldn’t be wrong to say, indirect political appointments), and where there is no foolproof system of nomination, the judiciary of that State is not free and fair.

In a Perfect Democracy the courts should be approachable by even the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak. The cost of approaching the court should be nil or minimal and the Justice should be meted out without unnecessary delay. There must be only one system of dispensing Justice. There should be no overlapping and no delay in dispensing the justice. In a Perfect Democracy, the justice should not be dispensed by closed eyes but by using all senses of cognition.

The appointment of Judges itself will preannounce the position of judiciary. There is not the slightest doubt that the judicial appointments must be totally on the basis of talent, intelligence and knowledge and not on any other criteria, lest it may defeat the purpose of judiciary.

All the Judges in the lower court must be appointed by the State Judicial Examination, which should Judge the general intelligence, the knowledge, analytical bent of mind, the expression of thoughts and other allied field of knowledge. The people qualifying the examination are to be appointed as the Judges in the lowest court in the hierarchy after proper training.

The high work load in the lowest court will provide the ideal platform for these Judicial Officers to polish themselves and learn more of the practical application of law. It shall be of great help to them in the higher courts of justice. The promotion structure should be such that those who join young into Judicial Services, have a fairly good chance of reaching the top and staying there for considerable time and themselves carry the objective of judiciary further.

It may be argued that the law brokers or the lawyers who work in the higher courts know and understand the functioning and procedures of higher courts better. But I am afraid that such excuses can not be bought because we are not talking about ordinary people but the dispensers of justice who are highly intelligent and efficient people selected through a well thought and implemented procedure, and are used to working under extreme pressures. A simple training after every promotion will add to the talent of the promoted Judge and he will prove to be better in most of the cases over his mates who opted for the profession of a lawyer and later on owing to his contacts or after a second thought opted to be Judge.

If there are people who still think that it is plausible and there is nothing wrong in the thought, that the State requires some Judges (not more than 10%) even at the second level, who have some experience of advocacy and have seen the things from the other side of the table. Even in such a case, direct appointments of Judges, immaterial of the method of such appointments, is not recommended. It is always possible to have an examination among the lawyers aspiring for the position of Judge and lawyers successfully qualifying the examination may be recommended by an appropriate procedure for recommendation.

I know it would be aggressively argued that senior or reputed advocates qualify by virtue of their experience and that it is a insult for the reputed senior advocates to apply for examination and qualify it, but then, people who do not apply or feel ashamed to be a part of procedure or feel afraid of appearing or have some inhibitions about a procedure, do not qualify on account of their unreasonable emotional expressions. Any body who is desirous of serving the State must prove that if he is not more, he is at least equal to the existing, at the same time in a Perfect Democracy, the unbiased and fair attitude of the appointing authority must be transparent.

There may be competent Judges to dispense justice but then it should be supported by a foolproof system of dispensing justice which not only assures fair and just trial but should be approachable and at the same time should neither be too costly nor cause any unnecessary delay in settlement of cases.

The age old maxim says that "Justice delayed is justice denied" it stands true even today and I believe will remain true always. It is must that the unnecessary tier system of judiciary borrowed from our rulers which promotes repetition of the same procedure again and again must be done away with. If the judiciary is unbiased, efficient and fast, then no more than three tiers of the system are required, the fourth stage (of Supreme Court) being only rarest of the rare, when a infirmity of law or procedure is brought about. Any case which comes before a court of law must not take more than six months before a tier of the court. This is taking into consideration not only the relative relevance of a dispute but also the average human life. If a case lingers on for 3-10 years at a stage as it happens in the present day situation, then the active life of a person would be wasted in pushing only one dispute and if he is unfortunate enough or socially aware enough to be involved in more than one dispute, then his plight is not even imaginable.

Since we are talking about no Sub-State Governments and no regional laws but, one State-one law, under such a case the role of the High Court shall be considerably reduced to that of appeal or enforcement of the basic rights of an individual only. The power to interpret the law or Constitution should be only in the rarest of the rare case, where there is an actual question of legal interpretation, not clarified/described elsewhere. Under such a situation the High Court can refer the matter to the Supreme Court on the request of the parties at dispute, if it so feels, before the decision of the matter in question, the Supreme Court is to interpret the legal provision on the basis of the matter on record in the presence or absence of the parties and inform the High Court of its interpretation. The High Court shall decide the matter on the basis of such interpretation. The role of Supreme Court shall be pruned considerably and its role as the court of appeal shall be only in certain enlisted matters of national interest and State affairs.

We are not to follow suit to any other system of judiciary, but are to see what suits us. We are not to stick to the guideline of the number of Judges, that we can have or the number of the courts. It is better to have overstaffing of Judges than to be under staffed which result in overloading the Judges with cases resulting in delay and compromise with merit. Even if we consider a situation where there are few judicial officers who are surplus, still this will serve the interest of the State. Can this in any way harm the interest of the State? If State thinks that there shall be a situation where there may be less disputes among the individuals and the number of cases fall, then there can not be more foolish presumption.

The other method of reducing delay is to take the aid of the latest gadgets of communication and computing. The highest department should not feel shy of using the latest technology because if the technology is not used for the public good then what good the technology is for, then why the State is spending so much on technological innovations? This reform of using technology and computing will organise the courts beyond imagination and shall decrease the load to less than one tenth level of the present.

Because of this change it would be possible to settle the disputes within the time-frame of six months. Technical innovation can make it possible to easily refer to any matter, have the latest legal provisions on the fingertips, communicate with any State authority instantly, call for any document or information from anywhere instantly, refer to the record without delay, have automatic reminders of delay and will help the superior courts to supervise to the last level of perfection.

About the cost of litigation, many of the legal luminaries say that it is moderately on the higher side to deter people from approaching the court on every petty issue. But people who put in such kind of arguments must realise that my Country is a poor Country and if anyone is required to spend an amount, on one case, equal to the average income of a person in one year, then how many people will protest against the injustice caused to them and how will the social injustice be removed? Then can it be said that there is equal justice for even the economically poor section also (other than the paper equality) or is justice only for the rich resourceful and the powerful? If the cost is high and there are economic restrictions on approaching the court then it will make the courts unapproachable to a large section of people specially in my Country.

Once the judicial system becomes totally unbiased and non manuplative (by people with vested interest), once there is no delay in deciding the disputes, unnecessary appeals are cut down, unnecessary technicalities are cut down. Then there shall be fewer and fewer frivolous litigations, the number of pending cases shall reduce dramatically and the purpose of justice shall be served even better.

In a Perfect Democracy, law and the practice of law is of great significance and importance because everyone is supposed to be educated and prudent enough to understand the things, under such a case if there is a feeling of the slightest level of injustice towards oneself and or group of people, it will shake the faith of the people in law and such people will try to upset the law and the legal provisions, which will spread a gradual chaos.

The law should always be practical and easy to understand and comprehend. The books and other communication tools which are supposed to tell you the law of the land should be easily and freely available. The literature on different laws should be latest, up-to-date and available from easily locatable outlets. All the latest judgements and rulings too should be accessible even to a layman in the shortest possible time.(which is certainly not the present scenario)

The present day scenario is very discouraging. In my Country, the layman is afraid of the law because he can not understand it and the brokers of law are making money only because of the ignorance of the public. The books and literature of law are not readily available even if the Government publishes the same, still to the ordinary public the latest drafts are not available for years, by that time they become obsolete. Various amendments by different states are not known even to the experts, the ruling of the higher courts are not available for years and decisions are given on older rulings either because of ignorance or with mala fide intentions. All the intricacies are not known to most of the people practising law. Only a selected few are able to extract maximum from it, but then these specialists are beyond the reach of ordinary people.

In a Perfect Democracy, Legal system should be very simple so that every person should be able to plead his case on his own, without the assistance of an advocate. The legal literature should be freely available, the law should be the same for the whole State and it should be the continuous effort of a Perfect Democracy to have one law Globally, as far as possible.