About Judicial  Colloquia

About Judicial Colloquia

The process of closed door exchanges among judges and senior practitioners, based on a review of developments in law and practice, and the publication of papers presented, has been widely acknowledged as a successful model for judicial education, and has been part of a process for increasing judicial sensitisation to human rights.

South Asian Judicial Colloquium Series

This series is the first systematic effort to create a forum for ongoing regional co-operation among South Asian judges focusing on human rights and access to justice.

This initiative aims to:

• build upon existing successes in using the national courts to secure human rights to expand access to justice for the poor and disadvantaged

• address the limitations of existing case law and practice in this area

• increase judicial capacity to enforce economic, social and cultural rights, which go to the root of poverty alleviation.

Judicial Leadership

The project emerges directly from recommendations by South Asian judges and lawyers to create a forum for exchange on issues and strategies of regional concern, specifically to address the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. The process is entirely judge-led and a contact group of senior judges from across the region has been established to guide the process of the Colloquium Series.

Members of the contact group liaise closely with the facilitating organisations in conducting the various activities relating to the series, and, consulting widely within the South Asian judiciary and beyond, assist the organisers with designing the content and format for the meetings.

Activities

The series comprises two levels of meeting, the Regional Colloquia and a series of national and state-level Judicial Exchanges.

Meetings

• Launching the Series, the first South Asian Regional Judicial Colloquium on Access to Justice was held in New Delhi in November 2002 (click here for further details) and a second and final regional colloquium will be held at the end of the series.

• We are planning to hold at least five Judicial Exchanges at a sub-regional level, covering Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (click here for further details), thus giving participating judges the opportunity to focus on some of the issues most pertinent to their particular region and to discuss country or area specific issues relating to the judicial enforcement of rights.

Other Activities

In addition, project activities involve:

• undertaking critical research on the implementation of human rights and access to justice in South Asian courts, including reviewing developments in case law and practice;

• commissioning background papers from participants for the colloquia; and

• contributing to national initiatives on judicial education.

Aims

• The aim of the Colloquium Series is to provide a regional forum for judges to focus on the blockages to enforcing human rights, in particular economic, social and cultural rights. More specifically, it aims to enable judges and selected human rights practitioners to:

• exchange information and experiences on the application of international human rights norms in national courts;

• familiarise themselves with the new and innovative jurisprudence emerging from within the region and elsewhere which is of particular relevance to the needs of developing countries;

• learn from each other regarding practical strategies and innovative practices for the protection of human rights within South Asia on human rights and access to justice; and

• consider developments regarding regional standards on human rights.

Outcomes

We anticipate that the project will have the following outcomes, in addition to the tangible outputs of the project itself:

establishment of a mechanism for ongoing interaction between judges in the different countries of the sub-region, thereby enabling exchange of views, case law and judicial experience in developing areas, particularly on means to secure rights and to expand access to justice for the very poor and disadvantaged.

development of stronger jurisprudence in each country on economic and social rights and on issues which particularly impact on persons living in poverty.

the adoption in each country in the region of innovative methods of improving access to justice for the disadvantaged, already pioneered in several of these countries.

closer interaction and links between the judiciary and lawyers and NGOs representing the interests of the poor and disadvantaged, to inform the judgments of the former and the strategies of the latter.

judicial support for a sub-regional mechanism for the protection of human rights.

Background

In South Asia, the judiciary plays a particularly important role in protecting the rights of citizens, in particular of the most vulnerable sectors of society. The trend throughout national courts in the region to developing human rights jurisprudence indicates the judiciary's significance in finding common solutions to common problems. For this reason, strengthening the judiciary, by increasing linkages between pro-active judges in the region, and enhancing the capacity of the courts to protect rights, is key to democratic governance.

A ten-year cycle of international judicial colloquia was initiated by the then Chief Justice of India, Justice PN Bhagwati, and held in Bangalore in 1988. Following meetings in every region Abuja, Harare, Oxford, Johannesburg and Georgetown, the series concluded again in Bangalore in 1998. The 'Bangalore Principles' of 1988, adopted by eminent jurists from across the globe attending the first Colloquium, came to influence the jurisprudence of a number of courts, and enabled judges to apply international norms in interpreting constitutional guarantees of rights (see the series of publications, Developing Human Rights Jurisprudence: Domestic Application of International Human Rights Norms, Vols 1-8, INTERIGHTS/Commonwealth Secretariat).

At the final such colloquium, in Bangalore in 1998, a group of South Asian judges (from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) floated the idea of holding a specifically South Asian colloquium process, enabling dialogue among judges and practitioners on issues of particular regional concern. Subsequently, a meeting was convened in Dhaka in 2000 by the then Chief Justice of Bangladesh and attended by the then Chief Justice of India and the then Chief Justice of Nepal, which recommended holding a colloquium series focusing on issues of access to justice and economic, social and cultural rights in the context of the widespread incidence of poverty in the region. INTERIGHTS and CHRI were requested to facilitate the holding of this series.

The planning meeting also proposed holding an annual regional colloquium, together with a series of national judicial exchanges within several of the SAARC countries, and a longer-term programme of contributing to the development of judicial education in each country. An informal contact group of judges was formed, to guide the content and structure of the programme and CHRI and INTERIGHTS were asked to facilitate its implementation.

Conclusion and Recommendations of the Preliminary Meeting for a South Asian Colloquium Series, Dhaka, 14 May 2000.