Chief Justice of Singapore Praises Indian Supreme Court For Handling 'Immense Caseload', Hails Its Judges As Hardest Working In World

The chief justice made this remark while he was delivering the first annual lecture organised by the Indian Supreme Court to commemorate the seventy-third anniversary of its establishment on the topic The Role of the Judiciary in a Changing World.

Justice Menon’s lecture revolved around the central theme of a ‘perfect long storm’ of global challenges. “It is an inescapable reality that changes are taking place in the world around us. That are dramatic both in rate and in scope…The pandemic might only be one amongst the number of world changing events that have taken place over the past few years,” the judge said. He highlighted the dramatic shifts in the global political environment, with developments that signal a long-drawn war in Europe. Lurking in the background are even graver threats, such as the prediction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we are at the precipice of existential threat, he said. “Alongside global geopolitical instability, global health security and the climate change crisis, we see the threat of stagflation and the risk of growing economic and social inequality. These are a confluence not of random shocks but of structural issues and insecurities that will be with us in the long term.” He also explained that the judiciary was not immune from the fallout from these issues looming on the horizon. “They will have an impact on one or both of those essential elements of our work competence and legitimacy, beside adding significantly to the pressures threatening to undermine the legitimacy of public institutions, including courts.”

Justice Menon then proceeded to identify six specific types of challenges, most of them arising directly or indirectly from these global challenges, which have particular relevance to courts and legal systems. “They come together to form what we might think of as a perfect long storm, bearing down specifically on justice systems around the world,” he said. First, these global challenges have and would in the future give rise to new legal issues. They would first and foremost be political problems, but almost all of them would have legal dimensions. Second, disputes would also become increasingly complex, both in terms of technical complexity and evidential complexity. Complexification of disputes would give rise to the possibility of emergence of cases that are too complex or voluminous for any single human adjudicator to process. Third, legal issues would increasingly disregard boundaries as a consequence of countries becoming more economically interconnected than ever before. Fourth, unequal accumulation of wealth, as well as increasing cost and complexity of legal dispute resolution would pose grave challenges with respect to access to justice for those left behind, “who would feel increasingly marginalised & disillusioned with justice system”. Fifth, the phenomenon of ‘truth decay’, i.e., the proliferation of misinformation and devaluation of truth, would spread into court proceedings and attack the justice system by, inter alia, diminishing the legitimacy of judgements and judges, and eroding public confidence in the institution, therefore, “undermining the important stabilising function that the judiciary discharges in upholding the rule of law”. Finally, the final set of challenges, which is the culmination of all the foregoing challenges, would be the increasingly evident breakdown of trust in public institutions. He explained, “Distrust is now society's default emotion. Deficit of public trust could be because of causes such as truth decay, but also likely to be due to the sense that public institutions are failing to deliver. We should not think courts stand apart from other institutions in this regard. Public trust is critical for the judiciary because its legitimacy rests on the broad public acceptance that we are reliable truth seekers and truth finders. If this trust falls away, courts will be left to operate solely on state power.”

Since these challenges threaten the rule of law and ultimately, our institutions as a whole, judges also need to respond “as best as they can” to the perfect long storm. To bolster this contention, Justice Menon cited how judges have traditionally held themselves aloof from the public, but the strict principles warning judges against commenting on government policy, defending their judgments publicly, or engaging with the media “have long fallen out of fashion”. “Thus, while judges generally continue to let their judgments speak for themselves, most judiciaries no longer see anything wrong with other facets of public engagement that spread awareness of judicial work,” the chief justice said. These shifts in judicial attitudes reflected an evolution and refinement of the understanding of the judicial mission, he added. In order to rise to the challenge of the day, the evolved judicial role must include redoubling efforts to build user-centric court system, enhancing judicial competencies by investing in judicial education and training, and pursuing continuous innovation in justice system, as well as actively promoting international judicial engagement and judicial diplomacy.

He concluded by saying, “At the start of my address, I painted a rather bleak picture of the perfect long storm approaching judiciaries around the world. Meeting these global challenges will require a multipolar effort. And while the courts cannot lead the charge against their root causes, by refining our understanding of our role as judges, we can tap upon the strength and expertise of judicial institutions and redirect them towards responses to these challenges that accord with the constitutional role of the judiciary. We should aim to become institutions that excel in the administration of justice. This is a critical mission. If we fail, the perfect long storm portends a breakdown of the rule of law. But if judiciaries are successful in this endeavour, they will help guide their societies through the tempest.”