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Distrusting a system is not a problem at all, it is a sure sign of democratic progress: Former Orissa HC Chief Justice S. Muralidhar

admin — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 06:19:00 +0000

Former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court S. Muralidhar, who chairs the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, speaks to Sarath Babu George about international humanitarian law, India’s position on Palestine, the ability of international institutions to hold powerful States accountable, judicial independence, constitutional offices, civil liberties and the Gen Z protests.

India has historically supported the Palestinian cause while maintaining strategic relations with Israel. From the standpoint of international law, how should India navigate this relationship?

India will have its own compulsions. But there is a bottom line that we should never allow to be crossed. Here, the bottom line is international humanitarian law.

We should not be among those countries that find it acceptable that children are dying of starvation or that children are dying for want of medical aid.

I don’t think India is that kind of a country. It has never held itself out to be that kind of a country. If it is supporting the Palestinian cause, it should be deeply distressed by what is happening.

And when it negotiates with Israel, it should place this at the forefront, express its disapproval of such actions, and take it from there.

Do you think international institutions such as the International Criminal Court are still capable of restraining powerful States when geopolitical interests run strongly in the opposite direction?

The International Criminal Court is under a great deal of stress and pressure because sanctions have been imposed by the United States on its judges. This is very, very unfortunate. The rest of the world community, apart from making token protests, is doing very little about it. That is not a good sign.

We expect all these international adjudicative bodies to be truly independent and free of political pressure. One hopes that this will change.

We want all these systems to work. It is in the interest of countries such as India, countries in Africa and countries in South America, which are under tremendous geopolitical pressure, to have a mechanism where we can ask for answers.

We must be able to hold governments and individuals within those governments accountable. There must be some forum where that can be done.

So, it is very important, in the interest of all nations, that these mechanisms, whether the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, are allowed to work fearlessly and truly independently.

Do you think the Indian judiciary today enjoys the level of institutional trust that it did a decade ago? What, in your view, has changed?

I don’t think there has been a shift in the overall level of trust in the judiciary. Perhaps the judiciary has not always been able to meet the expectations that people have of it at different points in time. But there are also moments when it gives people hope.

So, I would call it a mixed record; it is not a consistent one. People continue to come to the courts. There is also an element of choicelessness in coming to the courts. When you criminalise more and more ordinary activities, such as protests, people are bound to face the coercive element of the law and are forced to go to court.

So, filings have gone up. If you go merely by the number of cases being filed, you cannot say that people have lost faith in the judiciary.

Q: There has, however, been growing apprehension about the independence of the courts — from judicial appointments to the manner in which governments respond to judgments. What are the most serious institutional pressures facing the judiciary today?

We have to look at the judiciary at three levels. I invariably emphasise that the district judiciary is far less independent than perhaps the High Courts or the Supreme Court ought to be.

The extent to which individual judges succumb to pressure varies greatly. There are judges at all levels – the district judiciary, the High Courts and the Supreme Court – who have shown a remarkable degree of independence. But those judges are fewer in number than we would like them to be. That is what invites the comment that perhaps the judiciary is not as independent as it should be.

I think the judiciary should be more assertive when it chooses people to be appointed to the High Courts and the Supreme Court and should not succumb to pressure at that stage.

Secondly, it should take up cases involving government action in good time. It took four years to decide whether the conversion of a State into a Union Territory was legally valid. It took six years to decide whether demonetisation was legally valid. You cannot afford to take that long over electoral bonds. You allow so many elections to take place and then finally decide that the scheme was completely illegal. But then you allow the very party that collected the maximum funds to retain them.

Somewhere, all of this is disappointing. It also raises questions about how independent and responsive the judiciary ought to be. So, again, it is not a consistent track record. I would say the hope is that it will become more independent.

Of late, we have witnessed a series of tussles between State governments and Governors. Does the constitutional design give Governors too much discretionary space, or is the problem primarily that constitutional conventions are not being respected?

I don’t think either explanation is entirely true. You should see Governors for what they are. Whether it was under the earlier dispensation or the present one, Governors have acted according to the dictates of the Union Home Ministry. It has always been like that, and it continues to be like that.

The office of the Governor has always been misused to invite someone to form a government or to dismiss a democratically elected government. That misuse continues.

After the S.R. Bommai judgment, the imposition of President’s Rule has come down. But the misuse of the Governor’s office continues. I don’t think the Constitution envisaged the Governor as someone who was meant to exercise independent discretion in this manner. The office has effectively functioned as an extended arm of the Central government.

And I want to emphasise that this is not peculiar to the present dispensation.

The use of investigative agencies has generated allegations of selective or politically motivated prosecution. What safeguards should the judiciary insist upon when the State invokes coercive powers?

Criminal law is tested by procedure. There should be no dilution of procedural safeguards, such as furnishing the grounds of arrest.

Whatever the coercive process, you cannot say that the requirement to furnish the grounds of arrest applies only under the regular criminal statutes and not under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or some other law that also permits search, seizure and arrest.

We must use the Constitution to say that, under any law, no arrest should take place without furnishing the grounds of arrest. When someone complains that the grounds were not furnished, you cannot say that the case has already progressed to the investigation stage and that it is too late to complain about the arrest.

We must place the liberty of the individual at the highest value and be completely intolerant of any attempt to bypass procedure. Procedure is what tests criminal law and the actions of the State under criminal law. That is the most precious liberty a person has, and the courts have to stand very firm on this.

In this regard, how do you view the recent actions of the Enforcement Directorate across the country?

There are judges in the Supreme Court who have told the Enforcement Directorate what it should and should not do. When the court tells it what it should not do, the Enforcement Directorate must respect that.

The courts should be able to pull up the agency at every level. You should not have to go to the Supreme Court every time to establish that an action by the Enforcement Directorate is wrong. You should be able to go even to the court of first instance and say: don’t mechanically remand this person to the Enforcement Directorate’s custody or judicial custody. Insist that the procedure is followed.

The day that happens across the judicial hierarchy, citizens will have greater assurance that their liberties are secure.

We have also seen the emergence of Gen Z protests, with young people expressing distrust of institutions over examinations, jobs and questions of fairness. Is the problem that young people are becoming too distrustful of the system, or has the system given them too many reasons to distrust it?

No. Distrusting a system is not a problem at all. It is a sure sign of democratic progress. We want our systems to function for the people.

It is government by the people, for the people and of the people. Ultimately, governments are answerable to the people. Here, the people happened to be Gen Z, and they were doing a very basic exercise in democracy: asking for accountability in the exercise of power.

They were making a simple statement: “We have entrusted you with certain powers, which have to be exercised for our benefit. Are you doing it or are you not? We believe you have not been doing it. We want you to answer for it.”

They were exercising freedom of speech, freedom to form associations and the freedom to assemble peaceably and without arms and to express their voice.

If you look at Article 19, I think Gen Z was exercising Articles 19(1)(a), 19(1)(b) and 19(1)(c) very systematically. And they were doing it with a wonderful sense of humour. There was also fearlessness. These are all healthy signs in a democracy.

Under such circumstances, how should the judiciary distinguish between legitimate civil disobedience and disruptive or violent protests?

All of us were watching the same protests through the same media, social media and electronic media. We could see that this was a peaceful protest. No student was armed. There is a clear distinction between a peaceful protest and a violent protest.

The attempts to portray these protests as violent also failed because it was not possible to pinpoint any one student who had gone beyond the known boundaries. On the other hand, we could clearly see the disproportionate force that was used.

In such an instance, I think what ultimately persuaded the court to quash all these FIRs was precisely this: it could clearly distinguish between a peaceful protest and a violent one.

Published – September 05, 2026 09:48 am IST

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Reasonable to believe targeted killing of children part of larger plan for genocide of the Palestinian people, Justice Muralidhar says

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 07:40:00 +0000

Justice S. Muralidhar, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, discusses the United Nations panel’s report on crimes committed on Palestinian children by Israeli security forces resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children since the October 7, 2023 armed incursions by Hamas. The former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court and currently a senior advocate practising in the Supreme Court of India, in an interview with The Hindu, explains findings of systematic targeting of the most vulnerable Palestinian populations — women, children, and the elderly.

One of the objectives of the Commission is to find the root causes of recurrent tensions, systematic discrimination, and repression. What is driving this specific targeting of the most vulnerable sections of the population—women, children, and the elderly?

The conflict can be traced in the modern era to the 1947 United Nations resolution based on the two-state framework of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine. There has always been a grievance by the Palestinian people that they were not consulted on what should constitute the territory of either state. These boiling issues have never been resolved. We have had the Nakba—the en masse exodus of Palestinian people driven from their land—and the Yom Kippur war. Every time, Israel tries to expand its territorial limits, a process that continues today. Israel’s vision of what constitutes its state stands at odds with the UN resolution itself. Hence, it tries to present a fait accompli, operating on the premise that once they have occupied these territories, they cannot be asked to leave.

The geographical mandate of the Commission spans the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including Gaza and East Jerusalem) and Israel. When we look at human rights and humanitarian law violations, we look at occurrences across all these areas. Our reports must address underlying root causes, which is a highly sensitive topic because, at times, those causes can be traced back to Biblical times.

The report touches upon previous violations against Israeli children by the military wing of Hamas and other groups, alongside actions by Israel against Palestinian children. Has the child ceased to be a protected entity and been reduced to a deliberate weapon of war?

A child as young as 10 years old is labelled a terrorist. Once you shift the label from “child” to “terrorist”, you strip that person of all rights. The child becomes “free game” or “target practice”. Israeli soldiers are able to shoot at sight by simply claiming, “I am not shooting a child, I am shooting a terrorist”.

The Commission has labelled Gaza “the most dangerous place to be a child”. Given the scale of destruction, at what point does the legal definition shift from crimes against humanity to outright, calculated genocide?

Deliberate intent is one of the parameters used to establish genocide. This means an intent to destroy a group of persons. The Commission’s detailed report in September 2025 described a constant attack on Palestinians as a group to deprive them of land, resources, and cultural roots, and to drive them from their habitations. It is a risk to their whole entity and continuation. In that process, the targeting of children becomes a device to ensure the biological and social discontinuity of the Palestinian people as a group, because children constitute that continuity. It targets the root itself to ensure there are no more Palestinian children. This manifests in multiple ways – ensuring children are not conceived in the first place, treating pregnant women as legitimate targets, and leaving mothers malnourished. There are no incubators available for newborns, causing many babies to die at birth or be born at extremely low weights, such as 900 grams. Furthermore, children are driven to displacement camps, 97% of schools have been destroyed, and minors are specifically targeted by quadcopters, snipers, and drones.

When you see the entire pattern, it becomes abundantly clear that this plan of genocide involves the deliberate targeting of children. However, people should make the distinction between a judicial body and an investigating body. For the purposes of investigation, the standard is “reasonable grounds to believe”. We have concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that this targeted killing of children is part of a larger plan for the genocide of the Palestinian people as a group.

The report documents chilling testimonies, such as a doctor stating soldiers used children as target practice. In the face of absolute non-cooperation from Israel, what verification standards did the Commission employ to ensure these testimonies are legally ironclad?

We pick up only evidence that can be corroborated by independent sources. If a child testifies about what they underwent in an Israeli prison, we do not simply rely on that testimony. We look for forensic ways to establish the presence of that child, while ensuring the process does not re-traumatise them. We also receive information from healthcare workers, academics, journalists, lawyers, victims, and families. We utilise photographs, videos, audio statements, medical reports, and oral testimonies from doctors. On top of all this, we have footage of Israeli soldiers filming themselves and uploading it to social media. Notably, when Israel prepared an 18-page rebuttal to this report, they did not dispute any of those pieces of evidence.

The report explicitly names the Israeli military brigades and divisions operating during these atrocities. Is this the baseline framework for a future international war crimes prosecution process?

It should be. What we find is that accountability mechanisms are often not properly activated when these reports come out. We made it a point to tell the world that we have evidence to pinpoint who could be held responsible. There are over 12,000 U.S. nationals serving in the Israeli Defence Forces, alongside over 6,000 French, 5,000 Russian, 4,000 German, 3,000 Ukrainian, and nearly 2,000 British nationals. In total, 16 to 17 countries have nationals serving in the IDF. Many return home after a single stint.

If they have been named as being involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, there is an obligation on these countries—who are treaty parties—to investigate them. If they want evidence, this Commission will be happy to share what it has. They can use our report as a starting point to probe further. Even if the crime did not happen in their territory, they could exercise “universal jurisdiction” because the perpetrator is within their territory. This often happens selectively due to political compulsions, but we hope there are no political compulsions when it involves crimes against children. One crime cannot be substituted by another crime; that is not the way of doing justice.

The report describes the deployment of quadcopters, with soldiers equating the remote killing of children to “watching a video game”. How does international law address this psychological decoupling of tech-driven warfare from the reality of slaughter?

International law allows for interpretation. When a soldier notes that a quadcopter “does not hesitate, does not stop and almost never makes mistakes”, equating its operation to a video game, they know fully well what the consequences are. It is technological, but it is still a weapon. The wielding of a weapon to inflict maximum damage is something international law accommodates without needing structural amendments. The only requirement is to demonstrate the extent of the damage caused, the disproportionate impact that technology has had on hostilities, and how children are paying with their lives.

When a newborn in Gaza is structurally presumed to be a future terrorist, is that a failure of individual discipline among soldiers, or a top-down doctrine trickling directly from the Knesset?

The Deputy Speaker of the Knesset posted a message two days after October 7, 2023, saying “erase Gaza”. The fact that they can post this on social media shows the level of impunity they enjoy. They know that nobody is going to pull them up or try them for these offences. It is that confidence, that hubris. Therefore, it is a testing time for our international law mechanisms.

The Israeli High Court rejected habeas corpus petitions by stating there was “no indication” of child detentions, contradicting your granular evidence of torture. Has the Israeli judiciary completely compromised its independence to shield the military?

It is very unfortunate that the Israeli judiciary is unable to see the injustice of the whole thing. Habeas corpus is a fundamental remedy for an abducted child, allowing parents to ask a court to produce them. If that basic remedy is unavailable, then we might as well not have a judicial system. This is why we need an efficient, working international legal order. The basis for the International Criminal Court (ICC) is that a country is either unwilling or unable to bring people to justice. Here, it is a combination of both, and this is precisely the kind of case that must be taken up by the ICC.

Israel has dismissed the Commission’s findings as institutional bias and anti-Semitism. What is your direct response to the charge that this report is politically weaponised?

Although we would have liked to talk to Israeli soldiers and citizens ourselves, Israel does not permit that to happen. The Commission issues a “public call for submissions” at least six months prior to beginning work on a report, receiving inputs globally. We are an investigating body and remain prepared to consider any material Israel may have. In fact, I issue a note verbale to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN every time a report is under preparation, and we send advance copies of our draft reports to them for response. We just do not get any. We have no other agenda than uncovering the truth and seeking justice for all victims, whether Israeli or Palestinian. If Israel thinks we are wrong, engage with us, place the evidence before us, and show us how we are wrong. We are entirely independent; we do not take instructions from any other U.N. body. Accusations of bias serve no one’s purpose.

How has the resource crunch within the United Nations affected the Commission?

There is a severe limitation on our resources. The U.S. has stopped contributing to the UN system, meaning 40% of the budget is gone. The UN is downsizing, cutting staff positions, and not re-employing personnel. Even the mandated work of this Commission and the special rapporteurs is getting affected. We do not have the funds to travel. When this Commission started in 2021, the first three Commissioners could hold public hearings in neighbouring countries like Jordan, Türkiye, and Egypt, where Palestinian refugees could speak to us. Now, we are unable to travel due to a lack of resources and must rely on remote interviews and testimonies. While we can occasionally speak to children or doctors in person, it is not to the extent we would like.

Realistically, do your recommendations possess actual teeth, or will they simply be ignored by Western member states?

I am hoping they are not ignored. We made presentations of our report before the Security Council, presented our findings to the European Union, and had a separate interaction with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and individual ambassadors. The response has been overwhelming and supportive. Many countries are deeply aware that public opinion on the ground has changed. We saw this with the flotilla activists across three waves. Even when facing resistance and torture, the activations did not stop; public momentum continued. A report like this helps mobilise that critical mass of public opinion, which ultimately compels governments to change their attitude.

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