Society has created him, and now society wants to kill him – Sandhya Raju, Human Rights lawyer

Sandhya Raju is a human rights litigation lawyer with Human Rights Law Network, Kochi. In this interview with Bar & Bench, she talks about the proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act, recent issues on women and child rights, the prospects of working in the field of human rights litigation, and more..Bar & Bench: Why did you choose to do law?.Sandhya Raju: Actually, law was not my first preference. I always wanted to get into the civil services. So, litigation was more like a fall back option. Before practicing in Kerala, I was in Bombay for two years, where I worked with Flavia Agnes. She mostly dealt with women’s rights litigation, and I really liked the work. Yet, after a point, I wanted to come back to Kerala as it was my base. At that time, HRLN wanted to start a unit here, and our ideas matched, so I started working with them. We started in 2002, and that was how I got into the field of human rights litigation. We do all kinds of human rights litigation, but here, our focus is primarily on women and child rights, disability rights, rights of HIV patients, etc..B&B: Did you face any gender discrimination during your early days of practice?.Sandhya Raju: When we graduated, we had to undergo an apprenticeship period. For one year, we had to work under a lawyer. In the office where I worked, I did not face any discrimination as such. But I felt that there was this barrier in the minds of lawyers, in the sense that they were not entirely convinced about women advocates. They had doubts as to whether women advocates could deliver. When I started, women weren’t given very proactive work, at most they would be asked to seek adjournments. There were flexible timings for women, who would go home at 5pm..Now, I feel the situation has changed. In fact young women lawyers and students are more proactive, and are given more work. But there is still a bias, especially in litigation practice, it’s not easy..B&B: What are your thoughts on the new Juvenile Justice Bill, which proposes that 16-year-olds can be tried as adults?.Sandhya Raju: That is not something that should be done. We have been campaigning for the existing law to remain as it is. Persons below the age of 18 should be treated as children in conflict with the law. They are misguided youths who have not reached that mental state where they can determine whether what they are doing is right or wrong. We organised a consultation programme, where psychiatrists analysed the mental state of these children in conflict with the law. They came to the conclusion that these children were not mature enough to have an opinion of their own, they merely follow the herd mentality..The proposed change seems like a reaction to violence against women, especially after the December 16th incident, which caused outrage in the minds of everyone. But the thing is, these children can be easily exploited. For instance, they can be beaten up and made to admit to crimes they haven’t done. Locking them up in jail, away from society is not a solution, it won’t change anything. It is usually between 16 and 18 years when people start becoming capable of regretting their past, and this leads to reformation. If they are put in jail during this period, there is no hope for that..B&B: Don’t you think that it’s possible for a 16-year-old to have the mental capacity of an adult?.Sandhya Raju: No, it isn’t possible. How can you say exactly when a child attains adult maturity? They have been witness to horrible things much before they could understand them, thanks to adults with bad intentions..Take the case of the juvenile involved in the December 16th gang rape. He has been in and out of observation homes and juvenile care centres since the age of twelve. During this period, he has been abused and beaten up by the inmates. Do you think he can possibly have a kind attitude towards people? He has been brought up in a violent environment, where nobody has stopped to care about the pain inflicted on him. As a result, he is not capable of feeling remorse when he inflicts pain on others. Society itself has created that sort of individual. So, it doesn’t make sense when that same society wants to kill him..They are trying to amend the Juvenile Justice Law even without creating a conducive environment in the observation homes and seeing whether the existing system will work. At present, there are no facilities and no psychological counselling on offer. Without putting in any effort or funds to try and improve the system, they are saying that these children are incapable of being reformed and deserve to be tried as adults. In law, there is a maxim that says, “No one can take advantage of his own wrong.” Apparently, that is exactly what the state seems to be doing..B&B: Recently, the Kerala State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights was constituted. .Sandhya Raju: We have been instrumental in setting up the Commission. They are trying to proactively monitor the status of child rights violations in the state. Being a government body, they have limited resources..I feel that a lot more work on preventing sexual offences against children can be done. It has been only one year since they started working, so it would only be fair to give them another year. One good thing is that it is not a silent Commission, they have been raising issues and increasing awareness..B&B: Have the Special Courts under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act met their objective?.Sandhya Raju: I’m not convinced that they have. The prosecutors and the judges require attitude sensitization. At the end of the day, it’s the same lawyers and judges, only the court is different. They still have the old mentality that the victim could have done a wrongful act. In these courts, the prosecutors themselves, who are representing the child victims of sexual abuse, do not entirely believe the incident occurred. If this is the case, how can there be justice? So, I wouldn’t say that anything has improved..Kerala also has a Special Bench in the High Court for sexual offences committed against women. But here again, the attitude of the judges leaves a lot to be desired..B&B: In 2012, you filed a PIL to discontinue the use of the pentavalent vaccine for infants. .Sandhya Raju: When you introduce a vaccine, there are certain guidelines that have to be followed. For example, the parent has to be told about the side-effects. What happens in government hospitals is that families come with the child and the nurses administer the vaccine without saying anything. The pentavalent vaccine has side-effects, so I don’t think it should be compulsorily be introduced as a part of the immunization process for infants right now. There are still a lot of concerns which haven’t been clarified by the government. In private hospitals, it is optional and contingent upon the parent’s choice..B&B: A few months ago, around 15 women died in a Chhattisgarh mass sterilization camp. Do you think women go to these camps voluntarily?.Sandhya Raju: Not really, they don’t have a choice in the matter. They usually go because they are paid a paltry sum of 500-600 rupees. However, it is a possibility that they don’t want more children. It gives them some kind of control over their own body. But they are not fully informed about the consequences that could arise. Even when they go to hospitals, the doctors and nurses don’t like to be asked questions and tell them nothing. The whole process is dealt with in a very callous way, there are major violations of the women’s reproductive rights..B&B: The Supreme Court recently introduced Social Justice Bench in the Supreme Court. Why do you think it took so long for this initiative?.Sandhya Raju: Maybe they didn’t want to mainstream it initially, but later they thought it would be better to have a separate bench. The reason might have been to speed up cases of social importance which have been pending for a long time. Many of the cases that we have filed are part of this bench’s work. If it helps in decreasing pendency of these cases, well and good. But it shouldn’t be treated as a punishment posting for certain judges..B&B: What are the prospects of a law graduate who wants to work for an NGO?.Sandhya Raju: Human rights law basically exists to protect the rights of society. Just because certain people are from a particular community and don’t have economic power, people think that can be forgotten, [that] their rights are not important. That is where we come into the picture. To be a human rights lawyer, you need to have a perspective of the context in which human rights violations occur. If you understand that and are interested in the topic, then you will have great prospects here..Empathy is another important characteristic a human rights lawyer needs to have. Another one is the capacity to work hard. The work is dynamic and constantly challenging. Financially speaking, it’s not that bad. You obviously won’t earn as much as a corporate lawyer, but you can have a reasonably good lifestyle. The best part of the job is that you feel a link with the people, you are not away from society..Of late, what the law schools have done is that they have opened up a lot of avenues. You don’t have to be a traditional lawyer anymore. A lot of human rights organizations, the non-legal ones, don’t know the law. They have a very vague impression of it. This is where law graduates can come in and provide their expertise on how to address the issue. The key is to provide relief for the person whose rights have been violated, so it’s important for the organization as well as the legal expert to cordially approach the case.