Judiciary needs to know tech advancements to bare truth: CJI

Chief Justice of India T S Thakur today said both domestic and international law have an "innovation lag" compared to knowledge explosion in other fields and the judiciary should keep itself updated with science and technology advancements.
"We live in a global flux of constant transition. Globalised movement of knowledge and its products, impacts our societies and their functioning. This poses a global challenge for the judiciary's two key instruments: rule of law and of reason," CJI Thakur said while addressing the Fourth Retreat of Supreme Court judges here.
"As the science and technology for discovering and hiding truth advances, the judiciary's task of capturing relevant facts, rests on a knowledge of such science and technology," he added.

"Virtual reality increasingly becomes actual reality. Nature is no longer captured and processed. It is created in a Petri dish. The challenges posed by these developments, to individuals, social, economic and political systems, necessitates exposition, thought and interaction in key areas of evolving knowledge," he said.
"One may ask why a Retreat. The answer is straight and simple. Because hyper global challenge and its pace of change demand a total focus away from the daily turmoil and struggle in the courts," he said.
"In the global race for control of creation and its conversion into currency, both domestic and international law have an innovation lag. This can be overcome only by understanding the reason for it.

"The understanding of the forces behind the lag in the law, compared to the knowledge explosion in other fields, needs a reflexive environment, in which the judicial mind can absorb and contemplate," the CJI said.

"Global challenges posed by an array of technologies affecting international trade and foreign direct investment apart, challenges of strengthening democratic institutions, strengthening accountability systems and combating corruption... Are matters of great contemporary importance," he added.
He also flagged issues of protection of human rights and the significance of humanitarian law, concerns of national security and the threat of global terrorism, economic growth and globalisation, climate change and environment.

"The soaking up or internalisation of rolling frontier of human endeavour, enveloping one sixth of the human race that lives in this country needs peaceful time. This retreat is an attempt to provide such quality time," he said.
"Learning is by building on what one already knows. But if you cannot have access to knowing, because of the private economy of selfish interest, then there is nothing to build on," he said.