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Proposed   administrative   procedure
LM.04   :   Jury   System   over   City   Council's   Laws

Purpose : To reduce the chances that law-makers would make laws NOT acceptable to citizens.
    Contents
  1. Background
  2. Existing Law/Resolution Making Process in City Councils and Panchayats
  3. Flaws in the existing law-making procedure
  4. Proposed ADDITIONAL procedure
  5. Similar procedures for Assembly/Parliament
  6. FAQs on LM.04 (and LM.05, LM.06)
  7. Draft to enact LM.04
  8. How can citizens enact LM.04

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.

LM.04 is one of these proposed laws. (To see the list of some of the laws, please click here). The proposed law LM.04 will improve law-making at city/district level.


Existing Law/Resolution Making Process in City Councils and Panchayats

To get a brief description of existing law-making procedure in the City Councils and District Panchayats, please click here.


Flaws in the existing law-making procedure

There are several flaws, of which one specific flaw that LM.04 fixes is that many times, due to bribery/nexuses etc, City Councilors make laws that would go against the interest the citizens, and citizens know about it, but are unable to stop the Concilors. LM.04 will make it easier for citizens to reject an anti-common law.


Proposed Solution : #LM.04 --- Jury System over Law passed by the City Councils

The procedures is as follows
  1. Once a Bill is passed by the City Council, the Mayor will select 24 citizens at random from EACH of the ward and summon them within 7 days. (If a summoned citizen does not show up, Grand Jury may fine him. I have described the procedures to impose fine here.)

  2. Of the 24 citizens from each ward who have arrived, the Mayor (or his assistant) will select 10 citizens from each ward at random. This 12 citizens will form the Ward-Jury.

  3. The Corporator who had sponsored the Bill in the City Council can appoint a person per Ward-Jury, who would explain the law to the Jurors. Any citizens who wants to speak AGAINST the law, can submit his name to teh Jurors. The Jurors via voting will select atmost 2 persons. Each persons will explain the law for alternatively 1 hour each for at least 1 day, at most 3 days or when over 6 Jurors call for an end.

  4. At the end of the explanation, each Juror will declare if he supports the law or opposes it. If over 6 Jurors support the law, the law will declared as passed by that Ward-Jury.

  5. If over 50% Ward-Juries pass the law, then the Mayor will declare the law as passed, or else he will declare it as failed.

  6. For each different law, the Ward-Juror will be re-selected.

     Since the 100s of Jurors are chosen at random from lakhs of the citizens, it is almost guaranteed that thet are nexusless and thus will represent an undiluted, unadultered opinion of the citizenry. Thus in case the City Councilors have made a law that damages the interests of the citizens, the citizens have an easy way to void that law, instead of resorting to mass agitation and disrupting the civic/personal lives.


Putting a check on MLAs and MPs

     There are two similar procedures allow citizens to check MLAs and MPs respectively. They are

FAQs on LM.04, LM.05 and LM.06
  1. Arent Jurors sucepptible to bribery?
    Answer :
    Say there are 50 wards in a city. Then some 1200 citizens will be selected at random of which some 600 citizens be selected in second round who will form 50 Ward-Juries of 12 citizens each. And the Jurors change with EACH screening unlike Corporators, who are fixed for 5 years. Worse, due to anti-defection law, the Corporators has to obet thge parrt leader and thus the lobbyists dont even have to bribe all 100-150 Councilors, they only have to bribe the handful of party leaders. So indeed, it is possible for lobbyists etc to bribe 1000s and 1000s of Jurors, but it will be much much harder than bribing mere 50-150 Corporators and a handful of party leaders, who are fixed for 5 years. So Jury System DRASTICALLY reduces the chances of the success lobbyists can get by just bribery.

  2. Will citizens attend the Jury meeting?
    Answer :
    The Jury Duty is compulsory i.e. there is significant fine if the person who recieved Jury summons does not attend it. So yes, most citizens would certianly attend the Jury Duty.

  3. What about the cost of LM.04 (and LM.05, LM.06)?
    Answer:
    Say each Juror will be paid Rs 50/- per day and there will be additiona expense of say Rs 50/- per Juror per day. So a Ward-Jury of 12 Jurors which will screen the law for 3 days will cost say Rs 4000/-. So in a city like Ahmedabad with a population of 40 lakh, and some 43 wards, screening a law would cost Rs 1,60,000/-. The expenditure is NOT even 10 paise per citizen. So the cost is too too less given the plus points.

  4. Are citizens capable of deciding YES/NO on "complex" laws?
    Answer :
    Yes, in general, most laws *are* simple enpough that most citizens can decide their mind. And in case, a Juror does not have detailed knowledge about a specific Bill, he can always vote as per the advice of the experts he has faith in. And in worst case, he can leave the matter to his Councilors/MLA/MP and simply vote YES. So whether a Juror is capable of voting on a Bill or not is a mute point --- if he can make up his mind, he would approve/disapprove a law or else he would just approve as per the directive of his Councilor/MLA/MP.

(If you have any other question, please email the question to me at MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com)


Draft for #LM.04

To enact the administrative procedure #LM.04 in a District/City, a law needs to be passed in the City Council or District Panchayats. For the the EXACT Draft (Text) of the law, please click here.


How can citizens enact this procedure

     To enact the administrative procedure #LM.04 in a District/City, a law needs to be passed in the City Council or District Panchayats. For the the complete and EXACT Draft of the law, please click here.

     IMO, it would be wiser for the citizens/activists to first enact the procedure #LM.01 in a City/District, and then pass this draft.



Next - LM.05 : Jury over laws passed by Assembly