Access to Courts in Practice: Legal Aid and Public Interest Litigation

In one line

The Constitution guarantees a court; legal aid and relaxed standing are what make the guarantee reach the person who needs it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: article 39A requires the State to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity and in particular to provide free legal aid so that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities. Effect was given to it by the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987, which constitutes legal services authorities to provide free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of society and to organise Lok Adalats, and whose section 12 entitles specified classes of person to legal services, including any person in custody. Alongside the statute, the Supreme Court relaxed the requirement of standing so that a public spirited person may move on behalf of those unable to move themselves, and treated a letter as a petition, which is the route by which prisoners and detenus reach a court at all.

Article 39A, and how a directive principle became enforceable

Article 39A is in Part IV and is by its terms not enforceable by any court. It has nevertheless had more practical effect than most fundamental rights, by two routes.

It was read into article 21. The requirement that the procedure depriving a person of liberty be fair, just and reasonable, laid down in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597, was held to include the provision of legal services to a person who cannot afford them and who faces a proceeding that may result in the loss of liberty. Legal aid thus became a component of a fundamental right without ceasing to be a directive principle.

It was legislated. The Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 was enacted, in the words of its long title, to constitute legal services authorities to provide free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities, and to organise Lok Adalats to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity.

The long title is article 39A almost word for word, and a student should notice that: it is a statute drafted to execute a directive principle.

The Legal Services Authorities Act 1987

The structure. A National Legal Services Authority, a Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, State Legal Services Authorities, and authorities and committees at the district and taluk levels, with funds at each level.

Section 12: who is entitled. Every person who has to file or defend a case is entitled to legal services if that person is: