Boostrapping : CT.01 - Jury Trial over Municipality Employee
Bootstrapping
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Proposed administrative procedure
CT.01   :   Jury   Trial   over   Municipality's   Employee

Purpose : To reduce nexusproness in Municipality's staff

Pre-requisite reading : Why Jury System is superior than judge system


    Contents
  1. Background
  2. Existing procedure against unfit officer
  3. Flaws in the today's procedure
  4. Proposed improvement : CT.01
  5. Is this procedure fair
  6. Which procedure is less nexusprone?
  7. Advantages of CT.01
  8. Draft of the act to create procedure CT.01


Background

The purpose is to bring India's administration/courts at par with West. How? By improving record keeping in GoI-offices and reducing nexuses in GoI-offices and courts. How? We would need several laws to achieve that.

CT.01 is one of these proposed laws. (to see the list of some of the laws, please click here). The proposed law CT.01 creates a LESS nexusprone mechanism to decide if an accused employee of city/district govt should be expelled/punished or not.



Existing procedure against unfit officer

Suppose citizens have complaint against a municipality (or a Panchayat) staff member. Or say that employee's behavior is NOT as per the citizenry's general expectations. Then what remedies do citizens have today?

As of today, citizens can file complaint against that employee before an MLA/Minister or senior officer or a judge. If officer/Minister/judge believe that complaint is frivilous, they can ignore it. Or if they decide against the employee, then a so called "departmental inquiry" is called. The inquiry is conducted by seleted government officers or judges or retired officers/judges. These officers/judges decide if the employee should be fined/expelled, or let-off. Their decision can be challanged in the Administrative Tribunal, and then the High Court, and then the Supreme Court. And ultimately, the judges in High/Supreme Court will have the final say.



Flaws in the today's procedure

The sitting/retired officers and judges who preside the inquiry have had a long career, and during that career they often form dense nexuses with fellow officers/judges or lawyers who specialize in such cases. And the officer who is being investigated can often use those nexuses to get away. Also, the officers/judges presiding the inquiry know that defunctness in administration would hurt only the commons, and NOT the senior officers/judges. So in general, they are less concerned about reducing corruption, nexuses etc in administration. So even if the officer being investigated is guilty, they really have no reason to write remark against him.



Proposed improvement - CT.01 : Jury Trials over Municipality Employee

Following is the proposed administrative procedures, which are much less nexusprone that existing the above mentioned departmental inquiry :
  1. The Mayor will appoint a JA (Jury Administrator). The Mayor may assign this responsibility to an existing Jury Administrator.

  2. The JA will randomly select 30 citizens as the Grand Jury. Each Grand Juror will have a term of three months. So every month, 1/3rd will retire.

  3. Any citizen who has evidences/witnesses to show that an employee of City/District Government is corrupt/inefficient/nexused, or his behaviour is much below the citizenry's expectations, he can present these evidences/witnesses before the Grand Jurors.

  4. If over 15 Grand Jurors declare that the complain has some truth in it, JA will randomly choose 12 citizens from the city.

  5. If over 8 out of 12 Jurors, after listening to the arguments of both sides, declare that the employee was involved in an illegal act and is unfit to serve the citizens, the Mayor will expel the employee within 24 hours.

  6. No employee can be expelled, transferred or punished in any way without permission of Jurors. So if the Mayor, or any any senior officer has complaint against a junior officer

  7. The Jury Administrator will also summon 50 citizens at random, who will have to attend the courts (as viewer) to observe the trial. If a citizen does NOT appear to see the trial, he will have to pay a fine of Rs 100/day and if he appears to see the trial, he will be paid Rs 50/day (the amounts can be adjusted from time to time).



Is this procedure fair from employee's point of view?

Now in order to fine/imprison the employee, the citizenry needs to have proofs beyond doubt that employee's behavior was criminal. But to expel en employee, citizenry need NOT have any proof --- a mere suspicion or corraberative evidence of inappropriate behaviour is sufficient.

IOW, the job in city's government is NOT a birth right of employee, that citizenry MUST protect under any cost. Just as an employer should be free to hire/fire an employee, the citizenry of District is very much free to hire/fire District govt employee, with or without providing any reason.

Now does Jury represent the citizenry? They represent citizenry more than MLAs, Ministers, officers and judges, who as of today have powers to expel/fine officers. The judges have powers to even imprison him. Surely, the Jury is better representative of citizenry than Ministers and appointed judges/officers, as Jury was selected at random, and they are MUCH MUCH less likely to be nexused than anyone else. So by all means, Jurors are better/fairer representatives of the citizenry than Ministers, officers or judges.



Which procedure is less nexusprone or better?

Which procedure is less nexusprone? The existing procedure in which ONLY Ministers, officers and judges have powers to expel an employee, or my proposed procedure, in which Jurors and ONLY Jurors have powers to expel an employee? Since the Ministers, officers and judges have a long 5-30 year career, in general they would have developed nexuses with 100s of fellow Ministers, officers and judges, and even criminals and wealthy individuals living that area. So inquiries by Ministers, officers and judges will have effect of those nexuses. Whereas the 12 Jurors are chosen from a popolation of 10,00,000 were unknown before trial started, and hence were unnexused.

Also, the Jurors know that they will become common when the trial ends, and so they are more likely to think about impact of trial's verdict on the commons' lives. Where the judges, officers etc will not bother how the trial's verdict will impact the lives of the commons.

So Trial by Jury over Municipality's employee has several plus points over existing procedure of Inquiry/Trial by sitting or retired officers/judges. And Trial by Jury has NO minus points what-so-ever. Nevertheless, citizens using LM.01 should decide whether they want Trial by Jury or existing procedure or something else.

Also, since senior officers etc are very busy persons, and have lot of tasks to do, they seldom find time to hear the witnesses speedily. So enormous delay is caused and meanwhile witnesses get tired or tampered. So inquiry becomes fruitless. While Jurors can hear the case from morning to evening, day after day, without throwing long dates. So there is less delay, and lesser denial of justice.



Advantages of CT.01

  1. Gives a much much LESS nexusprone procedure to decide if employee should be expelled or not

  2. Gives a much faster, yet fairer, procedure to decide if employee should be expelled or not

  3. Gives a nexusless procedure to supervise a an employee


Draft of the act to create procedure CT.01

To enact CT.01, the citizens would need to pass an act in the District Panchayat or City Council. I have written that draft. To look at the draft, please click here.

     It will be wiser for citizens to first enact procedure LM.01, and then use LM.01 to pass this act. To know about procedure LM.02, please click here.



If you have any other question, please mail it to MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com. Thousand thanks in advance.





Next - CT.02 : Jury System over Policemen