Introduction

It will be a premier research centre of the state examining issues concerning law, justice and governance.The centre shall undertake projects that seek to make a difference for the community by advancing and facilitating improvement in the fields of justice and governance.The mission of the centre is to undertake quality research and suggest ways and means for improvements that benefit the society in positive ways.

Our legal system is faced with numerous crises starting with the fundamental challenge of enforcing the rule of law. Enforcement of the rule of law and efforts to protect the rule of law ought to be shaped by a number of factors that will improve the capacity of the legal system to respond to injustices. There is lack of awareness among the general public about the laws enacted by the State for their welfare. In the absence of any such awareness they are being exploited by those who are responsible for governing as per rule of law.Passing more laws and the establishment of more institutions credited with responding to injustices may not be the right approach.There needs to be a fundamental re-examination of the approaches that we have adopted to enforce the rule of law.  

 

Objectives

Some areas in which the centre will endeavor to make research and studies can be mentioned as under:

1.                  Studies of important laws by evaluating its use, abuse and other shortcomings – about a dozen of laws can be taken up for evaluation study every year.

2.                  Detailed analysis of specific types of litigation- labour courts, family courts, different types of criminal cases, building-vacation and rent cases, inheritance disputes, cases of commercial nature, employees cases in personnel matters against the government etc.

3.                  Evaluation of legislative initiative in Punjab.

4.                  Evaluation of legislative initiative of state governments in matters of concurrent list.

5.                  Evaluation of quality of legislative drafting.

6.                  Analysis of litigation between government & public and government & employees in order to find out where the fault lies- whether in the statue or in its implementation and observance.

7.                  A management perspective to suggest such designs of statutory interventions as conduce to efficiency in management a pragmatic review systems.

8.                  Analysis of litigation from various angles such as: -

-Causes of litigation and problems of adjudication

-Causes of delay possibilities of alternate disputes resolution

-Monitoring and management for expeditious disposal of court cases.

9.                  Accountability of police, prosecution and judiciary due to violation of human rights in false or negligent booking of accused persons / implication under unwarranted sections of IPC/ other laws.

10.             Study of the causes leading to various types of criminal cases with a view to reduce possibility of the offences by removing / mitigating the causes. 

11.             Restitution of victims of crime or vexatious civil litigation.

12.             Exploring alternate redressal system for minor crimes or for certain types of crimes. 

Action Plan

In order to achieve the objectives and to make research and studies for reforms and training, the Centre    prioritize the following topics/projects:-

·         Alternative disputes resolution mechanism in civil litigation.

·         Litigation regarding service matters relating to all the departments of Government including Boards and Corporations.

·         Labour law cases pending in Labour Courts- ADR process.

·         Problems faced by Departments of the Govt. including Boards/Corporations on account of legal hurdles/defects in the laws affecting their organization.

·         Land Revenue Act procedure regarding- contested mutations.

·         To create general awareness about the Law Justice and Governance among the illiterate villagers in the State of Punjab.