Editorial: The slow grind of justice

Two pronouncements in the past week by judges, one foreign and one Indian, should serve as a wake-up nudge in the ribs to the Indian judiciary on applying due process in a case involving powerful interests and finding one’s moral voice in the face of genocide by a state. In one ruling, an American judge has said “nothing doing” to an attempt by prosecutors to call off their own proceedings against Gautam Adani for attempted bribery in India. In the other, a United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Indian judge Srinivasan Muralidhar, has released a scathing report documenting the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children by the Israeli defence forces. One required a steadfast commitment to the letter of the law, and the other displayed an unerring loyalty to the spirit of justice.

Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar and five others from the Adani Group were indicted in the US for allegedly paying bribes to Indian officials to secure solar power contracts and raising finance in the US market on the strength of those contracts. After nearly two years of investigation, the US Department of Justice suddenly threw up its hands back in May and applied to the court to drop proceedings. The application was submitted at the behest of higher-ups in the administration and did not have the signatures of the case prosecutors themselves. This came about after the Adanis pledged to invest 10 billion dollars in the US economy and engaged a star lawyer who had been Donald Trump’s personal attorney.

District Judge Nicholas Garaufis would have none of this arrangement between the prosecution and the accused. He refused to dismiss the case unless he was provided sufficient factual support for the withdrawal of each charge against the Adanis. The case will remain pending until the judge is satisfied that the prosecution did its utmost to unearth evidence on each charge.

In the genocide inquiry, the Justice Muralidhar-led UN committee found that 30% of the Palestinian fatalities in Gaza and the West Bank were children, amounting to 20,179 killings, often deliberately targeted by Israeli snipers. There was a chilling pattern of using quadcopters and precision drones to specifically hit neonatal and maternity care facilities, the purpose being to stifle the reproductive future of Palestinians. Justice Muralidhar said, “the destruction of (Palestinian children’s) health, education and development is irreversible.” The report concluded that deliberate intent is “a key element that establishes the genocidal intent of the Israeli security forces”.

Neither judge Nicholas Garaufis’ observations nor Justice Muralidharan’s report are decisive developments, but they hold out the hope that due process will be followed in the courts and that evidence will be gathered and placed on record. The Adani bribery case will stay on the books until a credible case is made for withdrawing the charges. All US plans by the company will now be contingent, not on some private deal with the administration, but on satisfying the US justice system that the charges have been fully investigated. The UN inquiry report may not have the power to act to bring genocide charges against Israel, but its findings will add to a growing body of evidence that international courts will not be able to ignore. The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they must grind.