Report No. 58

No reason to be complacent

2.10. Some years ago, Chief Justice McRuer (of Ontario, Canada) said,1 that-

"In Canada, we have some reason to be proud of our judicial process, but we have no right to be smug."

This applies to India also. We have sound judicial traditions; a coherent pattern developed for the organisation of the judiciary; and a rational and systematic judicial process. There is no doubt that these factors have conferred great advantages on the country. An independent and efficient judiciary, a unified judicial system, and a modernised procedure-though legacies of the pre-independence year,-have been cherished by us. The judicial system has earned the respect of the people, and the respect so earned is well deserved.

1. MeRuer C.J., Lectures on the Evolution of the Judicial Process, p. 73 (the W.M. Martin Lectures delivered at the University of Saskatchewan in 1956) (published in 1957 by Clarke, Irwin-Co. Ltd.), quoted by Roraoe Read, "The Judicial Process in Common Law Canada", (1959) 37 Canadian Bar Review 263, 265.