Legislative Reforms

With the inexorable increase in our population, the Congress believes that it is time to review the strength of all legislatures with a view to making them more representative. A national consensus on this will be evolved.

The Congress will improve the functioning of the Committee system in Parliament. The number of committees dealing with specialised subjects will be increased and their functioning made more consultative, time-bound and professional. The Congress will take steps to ensure that Parliament meets for more days than it has been doing in recent times.

The Rules of Procedure will be reviewed to ensure proper decorum in the House at all times. An Ethics Committee for the Lok Sabha will be set up to act as a peer pressure group for probity and integrity. Other measures adopted in other countries with similar parliamentary systems such as ours will be studied and replicated here, if found needed to enhance standards in public life and parliamentary behaviour. All proceedings of legislative bodies will be televised.

Judicial Reforms

Immediate measures will be taken to drastically cut delays in courts, particularly in the High Courts and in lower levels of the judiciary. While structural measures will be taken to ensure that such delays do not take place in future, all efforts will be made in consultation with the judiciary to complete all existing cases in a clear, time-bound manner. Court management practices will be modernised with the help of modern technology.

A National Judicial Reforms Commission will be set up immediately to suggest details of radical improvements in our judicial system in every respect that will meet the needs of our people, particularly the poor, as well as commerce and industry in a more effective manner.

Immediate steps will be taken to fill all vacancies at all levels so that the disposal of cases is expedited. More courts will be established. More judges will be appointed. This will be done to provide speedy justice to the litigants.

The process shall be initiated of simplifying and codifying existing laws and writing laws in clear language that may be readily understood by the citizen. Attempt will be done to refashion the laws to suit requirements of the modern era. Legal aid services will be expanded and strengthened. The Congress is fully and firmly committed to public interest litigation. But at the same time it is concerned that there have been occasions when this has been misused for political purposes. Some safeguards will be necessary.

Government itself is a party to a substantial majority of the pending cases in courts. Steps will be taken to provide alternative dispute settlement mechanisms such as Lok Adalats, conciliation, mediation and arbitration, wide-ranging amendments in the Code of Civil Procedure, computerisation of courts, settlement of disputes between different arms of government outside court and quick decisions on appeals.

To ensure expeditious and affordable justice to the poor in rural areas, nyaya panchayats will be established by law in all states.

Electoral Reforms

The Congress is fully committed to radical electoral reforms to reduce the influence of money and muscle power and to check the criminalisation of politics at all levels. A comprehensive electoral reforms Bill will be introduced at the earliest. This will be based as much on ideas put forward by citizens’ organisations as on ideas expressed by political parties in Parliament and ideas put forward by the Election Commission in recent years. A corpus will be set up for state funding of elections. All political parties will be encouraged to make their accounting practices and procedures more transparent. The Congress will take the lead in this regards.

Human Rights

The Congress will strive relentlessly for the generation of a vibrant and visible human rights culture at all levels and everywhere in the country so as to ensure that the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are respected and human conduct is so regulated as to be in conformity with the prescription. The Congress has taken the lead and set up a Department of Human Rights. Every effort will be made to set up Human Rights Commissions in every state. The activities of the National Human Rights Commission will be given full support and encouragement.

Partnerships with NGOs

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), voluntary agencies and social action groups are important elements of a civil society, which will be nurtured and given every support. They will be fully involved in social mobilisation and in the implementation of development programmes. The FCRA and other procedures will be reviewed to eliminate harassment and needless interference. Consumer organisations will be given full support to act at watchdogs of performance.

Defence

The highest duty of the Union Government is to ensure national security and defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity, borders and interests of the country. The BJP government failed in this supreme national task. Its response to intelligence about Pakistani intrusions was tardy, callous and complacent. Because of the lethargic and careless approach, many gallant young men became martyrs trying to recover our own territory in and around Kargil. The euphoria of “Lahore” seemed to have left the BJP government in a dream world of its own. The anxiety of the Vajpayee government not to shatter this illusion that it had attempted to create and the resultant delay in responding to clear warning signals cost the nation many precious lives. Our brave jawans and officers succeeded brilliantly but the BJP government failed the country miserably. The Congress pledges that it will never allow Kargil-type incidents to occur.

The Congress also pledges that it will never allow Bhagwat-type episodes to take place where the armed forces were needlessly humiliated and their morale devastated. The Congress has never and will never make any compromises in ensuring no let-ups in the levels of our defence preparedness which, at all times, will be consonant with the nature and level of threat perceptions. These perceptions themselves will be kept under constant review.

The nuclear tests and Kargil have brought a whole new dimension to our defence planning and strategy. The needs of the future will also keep changing. With this in view, the Congress will appoint a High-Level Defence Reforms Committee to suggest a detailed operational plan for the reorganisation of the defence establishment in all its various aspects and for maximising the effectiveness of defence expenditures.

The Congress salutes the brave jawans and soldiers who are risking their lives so that all of us can live in peace. The armed forces are discharging their duties under conditions of extreme hardships. The Congress will attend to their problems and of their families on a priority basis without baulking at what is required to be done to recognise the gallant role being played by them. The special needs of jawans and their families in terms of education and housing will be met.

A clear, time-bound programme for the equipment modernisation and for keeping the armed forces at contemporary levels of technology will be undertaken immediately in a systematic manner. Investments in defence research and defence production will be sustained at levels needed to assure the desired level of defence preparedness. While the armed forces will undergo a major technological transformation, the Congress will also take appropriate steps to build up and develop the human resources as well.

The issue of one-rank one-pension will be re-examined and a solution to the satisfaction of ex-servicemen found expeditiously. The existing machinery to resettle, rehabilitate and to look after the welfare of the ex-servicemen and their families will be strengthened. A new Department of Ex-Servicemen’s Welfare will be set up in the Ministry of Defence to provide an institutional focus for a catalysing a national effort for enhancing the well-being of all ex-servicemen and their families. Ex-Servicemen and their co-operatives will be used for specific development programmes like literacy and afforestation.

No effort will be spared to meet the needs and requirements of all those families which are affected by the deaths of young men in the defence and service of the country during wars, and during counter-insurgency, anti-militant and anti-terrorist operations. A suitable national monument to all those killed in the service of the motherland will be set up in the nation’s capital.

The National Security Council has been set up. It will be made a purposeful, forward-looking, analysis-based organisation that represents a wider cross-section of intellectual opinion. A full-time National Security Advisor will be appointed..