Law with digital leap must speak every language: Justice Surya Kant
This pioneering effort to create an App to reach free legal aid to every person, from tribals to labourers to craftsmen in the hinterlands, was revealed on Saturday by Justice Surya Kant, Supreme Court Judge and National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) chairperson.
Delivering a lecture in memory of former CJI R C Lahoti at Manav Rachna University, Justice Kant said given the mobile phone penetration to the nook and corner of the country, said the mobile App under development would offer step-by-step guidance in every schedule language using voice, video and text and answer fundamental legal queries, explain rights and entitlements and connect the needy to lawyers and paralegal volunteers.
'The challenge before us is not simply about bridging a technological divide. It is about combining the best of our technological ingenuity with the enduring values of human empathy, procedural fairness, and social solidarity. Each digital leap must draw us closer to the soul of the law - a law that speaks in every tongue, answers every call, and bends always toward justice,' he said.
Justice Kant said multilingual digital platforms in the legal field could be of immense help if the AI is used ethically and transparently with supervision.
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'Guided conversations, through legal aid chatbots, can help citizens articulate their issues clearly, identify relevant rights, and generate basic petitions in local languages. Accordingly, the systems can quickly determine whether litigants qualify for free legal aid, reducing paperwork, discretion, and possible delays,' he said.
Proposing to involve law students, young advocates and retired legal professionals to provide legal advice to the poor, needy, illiterate and marginalised people free of cost through App-based direct interactions, the SC judge said this would not only exponentially expand the reach of legal guidance, but also foster a sense of shared societal responsibility for justice to all.
He said In remote villages of Assam, paralegals are now using mobile phones to record testimonials of domestic violence and connect survivors to pro bono counsel in real time. In Tamil Nadu, legal aid chatbots in Tamil have been deployed to answer questions on land rights and tenancy, he said.
But the success of this technology driven initiative depends on citizen's familiarity with its basics and the confidentiality and security attached to the interactions between the litigant and the legal professionals. 'As we digitise legal aid, we must design systems with built-in ethics. 'Privacy must be paramount; all platforms handling sensitive legal data must comply with rigorous data protection standards,' Justice Kant said.
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