Magistrates’ Workshop on Civil Rights

July 15, 2010 10:46 am

Taken from the November 2007 Newsletter

Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit has been committed to provide legal services to persons affected and infected with HIV/AIDS. The Unit has also made efforts to extend its legal services through Civil Rights Initiative (CRI) to drug users, sex workers, male who have sex with male and other communities vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. However, statutory laws like the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956(ITPA), Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(NDPS), Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), criminalise the activities of these vulnerable communities, therebymaking them more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

One initiative undertaken by CRI is at the Arthur Road Jail Mumbai, in association with the Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust. They provide legal services to drug users who are undergoing the rehabilitation program with Sankalp. Our experiences at Arthur Road Jail have shown that there is a vicious circle of vulnerability to HIV and arrests. Most of the persons picked up by the police are very poor and are booked under petty offences like theft, consumption of drugs, triable by the Magistrate’s Court and have no money to avail of bail, thereby they either plead guilty or languish in jail for months on end.

In our legal system, Magistrates are instrumental in not only providing justice, but also in assuring that the poor and those vulnerable have access to legal aid and are given bail or released on personal bond, thereby breaking the vicious circle of vulnerability and arrests. The need to sensitise and create awareness amongst Magistrates about socio-legal and ethical issues faced by communities vulnerable to HIV and how their situation is worsened by the criminal procedure and the criminalization of their lives was the reason for holding a workshop for Magistrates.

Eldred Tellis presented the problems faced by drug using clients of Sankalp and this was corroborated by the testimony of one of the clients. It was a real eye-opener for the magistrates who pledged to be more sensitive to such clients.