News Highlights:
- Chief Justice of India has called on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) member states to strive for judicial cooperation in order to make the judicial system more approachable for the common people.
- The CJI emphasised, “the necessity for collaborative adoption of new mechanisms to make court processes more simple and approachable”.
Key Takeaway:
- The eighteenth meeting of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Courts of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Member States was hosted in New Delhi by the Supreme Court of India.
- India assumed the rotational presidency of the SCO for a year in September 2022 through the Samarkand declaration last year.
- Pakistan was the only country which skipped the three-day conference hosted by India. It joined through video conferencing.
Key highlights of the speech:
- To work for judicial cooperation
- CJI called on the SCO member states to strive for judicial cooperation in order to make the judicial system more approachable for the common people.
- He stressed the need to collectively adopt new mechanisms to make court processes simpler and more accessible.
- Technology to bridge the gap:
- CJI Chandrachud said technology must be used to bridge the gap between citizens and the justice system.
- In this context, he shared the recent initiatives taken by the Supreme Court of India. These include:
- The launching e-version of Supreme Court reports,
- Artificial intelligence-based live transcription of court proceedings
- Translation of judgments in multiple regional languages.
- The approach taken by SC to overcome COVID-19:
- CJI Chandrachud shared the challenges faced by the judicial institution during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- He highlighted the measures taken by their judiciaries to minimise the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included:
- adoption of technology for virtual hearings,
- live-streaming of court proceedings, and
- e-filing undertaken by the Indian judiciary.
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation:
- About:
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent international intergovernmental organisation.
- It’s a Eurasian political, economic and military organisation aiming to maintain the region’s peace, security and stability.
- Membership:
- Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan and Iran.
- Genesis:
- Before the creation of SCO in 2001, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan were members of the Shanghai Five.
- Shanghai Five (1996) emerged from a series of border demarcation and demilitarisation talks that the four former Soviet republics held with China to ensure stability along the borders.
- Following the accession of Uzbekistan to the organisation in 2001, the Shanghai Five was renamed the SCO.
- India and Pakistan became members in 2017.
- On 17th September 2021, it was announced that Iran would become a full member of the SCO.
- SCO’s Main Goals:
- Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states;
- To promote their effective cooperation in trade, politics, research, the economy, technology, and culture. Education, transport, energy, environmental protection, tourism, and other areas;
- Making joint efforts to maintain and ensure security, stability, and peace in the region;
- Moving toward establishing a democratic, rational, and fair new international economic and political order.
- The organisation pursues its internal policy based on the principles of mutual benefit, mutual trust, mutual consultations, equality, respect for cultural diversity, and a desire for common development, while the external policy is conducted under the principles of non-targeting and non-alignment.
- Structure and Working:
- The supreme decision-making body in the SCO is the Heads of State Council (HSC).
- The HSC meets once a year and adopts guidelines and decisions on all important matters of the SCO.
- The SCO Heads of Government Council (HGC) meets once a year to discuss the organisation’s multilateral cooperation strategy and priority areas to resolve current important economic and other cooperation issues
- The organisation has two permanent bodies — First is the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) based in Tashkent and the second is the SCO Secretariat based in Beijing.
- The Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO RATS and SCO Secretary-General are appointed by the Council of Heads of State for a term of 3 years.
- Challenges:
- The SCO security challenges include combating terrorism, extremism and separatism; drug and weapons trafficking, illegal immigration, etc.
- Despite being geographically close, the rich diversity in members’ history, backgrounds, language, national interests and forms of government, wealth and culture makes the SCO decision-making challenging.
Pic Courtesy: The Indian Express
Content Source: The Indian Express