The need for “ Justice” cries out in the heart of every man - no gender bias meant.

In a world fraught with violence, lucky those who live in a country whose such need pass through a Court of Law.
But no man becomes poorer in his soul than the one for whom Justice gets denied for wanting of a thicker purse.

The Association des Consommateurs de l’Ile Maurice ( ACIM) has learnt of a draft proposal for new tariffs for lodging and processing cases at the level of the various courts within our judicial system, reportedly, as per the table below.

Four major issues are at stake here: SUDDEN and MASSIVE INCREASES of fees ranging from 571% to 2,857%. Coming from the judiciary this is not the best practices that we can set as example for fee increase.

The very sensitive chord of access to justice erupts, where the poor seem to be priced out.

The socio- economic context in which these proposed massive increases will apply.

There seems to be a lack of a policy of Good Governance, sustaining these increases by evidence – based approach.
You may wish to note that as it stands “ initiating court action” for redress, that is right a wrong, could be left only to those who are wealthy enough to sustain the proposed new tariff plus the attorney’s and barrister fees, on which nobody has any say.

A poor person who might be in a potential position to request for signifi cant damages as a result of harm and prejudice caused to him could be barred from going ahead as a result of his incapacity to meet the costs (...) The long term consequence of the poor family thus deprived of justice is immense. Some of these will be: an immediate further alienation of the poor from one of the main tenets of our democracy- an independent judiciary. Nobody will be able to hide the impression: “ zistice à deux vitesses, zisse pou bann riss”. The notion of the independence of the judiciary itself might be marginalised. (...) Appeal cases will thus be signifi cantly reduced, specially for the poor. Indirect consequences will be disregard for a court that presses with such fi nancial heavy weight on the shoulders of the poor. Disrespect for the courts will prevail, thereby, undermining one of our basic institutional tenets.

The system could be seen, by the poor, as one that functions as a solely punitive mechanism At a time when the last budget has brought out the need to give more access to justice the judiciary will be seen as going in the opposite direction.

Some statistics on revenue and unemployment might be useful to understand the potential impact of high fees on the lower or NO income group.

The statistics quoted below are from The Central Statiscal Offi ce documents. Please note that 375,000 persons, paid or self- employed, have an income range of less than Rs 15,000.

Those between the range of Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 are 48,700. Those drawing over Rs 20,000 are 89,000- Hence out of a working population of 513, 000, about 73% have less than Rs 15,000.

In addition, the amount of unemployed, as per the Digest of Statistics 2010 is 7,8%, amounting to 48,600.

The amounts of people who receive social benefi ts are, from statistical compilation from CSO fi gures worked out by ACIM: 180,430. More than 50% of these will fall within overall income bracket of less than Rs 10,000 ( estimates of ACIM) In total we fi nd an adult population of 513,600 -( 375,000 + 48600 + 90000)- being in an income group that would fi nd these increases beyond their means (...) We are seeing magnitudes of increase that go beyond the monthly pay packet of a good proportion of the population. In the middle- income group, it would go in the cost of the monthly shopping bill. We do understand that not all these people go to court, but those would need to would not be able, if such fees become applicable in their cases, by the sheer quantum of the new fees (…)