Engage law students to improve legal aid

Kanhaiya Lal Sharma is in his 60s and lives in Jodhpur. Last year, he approached the legal aid centre of the National Law University of Jodhpur with a request to get connected to a local lawyer for the representation of his suit. Sharma is not the only sufferer of the poor legal aid regime in India. Despite the constitutional and statutory recognition of legal aid as a right of the citizens and an obligation of the state, it has not been formalised and institutionalised in
the character of our democratic framework.

The constitutional framework under Article 39 A of the directive principles of state policy mandates that the state shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disability.

The National Legal Services Authority Act of 1987 mandates the criteria for providing legal aid services to citizens. While these structural issues have found forums for discussion, the status of legal aid clinics is seldom assessed. There are alternative ways to create and institutionalise a robust legal aid mechanism--by engaging law students.

The law schools in India are disconnected from social realities. A UNDP study titled Access to Justice Project on Study of the Law School-Based Legal Service Clinics finds that the law colleges have failed or have not spared much time in popularising and informing about the legal aid services in their law schools. This gap has substantially reduced the impact of the free legal services provided by the law colleges. In the area of legal representation, the law students and the law school clinics have performed dismally as the academicians and faculties are not allowed to represent in the courtrooms. Overall, the lack of initiatives, effective leadership, and enthusiasm among the students and the faculties is failing the law school clinics.

Diversity in the law school is a major reason for their negligible role in legal aid. The law schools are nothing short of “elite bubbles” that burst in the face of adverse situations. There are no effective studies to show that there is a direct relationship between the role of law students in providing legal aid and pursuing public interest in India and the diversity of the law schools. But the data from the diversity survey Increasing Diversity and Increasing Access (IDIA) from the top five NLUs reveals that the composition of law schools--in terms of gender, region, and the stigma attached to the fluency of the English language, or lack of it, among students--acts as a hindrance to the full participation and assimilation of students coming from diverse backgrounds.

The systemic lack of representation in law schools consequently impacts the social contribution of lawyers. Therefore, the students who enrol in the law school legal aid clinics either do not have any diverse ideas or first-hand experience of legal aid, nor do they shed their privileged identities to learn this. The apathy towards social contribution among students lies in the curriculum, which de-emphasises the social and political context. The case studies of the National Law University, both in Delhi and Jodhpur, offer classic cases of the engagement of law students and faculties in the legal aid system.

The effective implementation of the bar council rules of 1997, which mandate legal aid as a compulsory practical paper in law universities, the continuous engagement with the law students and the communities in the region nearby, creation of network of local lawyers and the dedicated team for legal literacy and awareness can infuse new life into the existing poor legal aid in the country. In the existing structure of law schools in India, it seems like a distant dream.

(The writer is a former convenor of the Legal Aid and Awareness Committee at NLU Jodhpur. He is a Samta fellow.)