Text Size:
A+
In India over 121 languages are spoken but the law is inaccessible in these languages on the Internet due to the preference and importance given to English and Hindi by the Government for the purposes of legislative drafting. Yet, the right to access translated text is guaranteed by the Constitution of India, 1950 and is one of the core aspects of access to justice and open data, thus underlining the need for better dissemination efforts by the government to make citizens equal participants in a democracy.
The COVID-19 lockdown has shown how critical this issue of lack of access is, given that the dynamic and uncertain nature of the prevalent domestic and global situation requires all citizens to be updated with important legal developments, including government orders, advisories, directives and guidelines, which are also constantly being reviewed, updated and amended by the government itself. The overall inaccessibility is further exacerbated by the lack of access to the internet for all citizens and the technological divide, which has become more apparent than ever before as a result of the pandemic.