The Washington Post today has an interesting story about a new mobile court system being implemented in India. A large bus has been converted into a mobile, fully-functional court that can service rural villages that typically lack access to India’s legal institutions. According to the article, the court travels with a staff of 12, has a judge’s chambers and an office for staff. The courts adjudicate both civil and criminal cases. The article also states that India’s judiciary currently has a backlog of almost 16 million cases. Another article states that at the current rate of court hearings, it would take India 300 years to clear out the backlog not counting any additional new cases. That’s pretty staggering. Apparently this isn’t India’s first venture into mobile courts. The Christian Science Monitor carried a story earlier this year on sidewalk courts being used in poor neighborhoods off India’s major cities to increase access to and efficiency of the legal system.

Access to the legal system is a major problem in many developing countries, particularly in rural areas. Many times the costs and time associated with seeking legal remedies prohibit individuals from pursuing justice in a court of law. In these situations, it is difficult for the state to establish its authority and develop a rule of law. The environment of prohibitively high actual and opportunity costs to access courts forces rural and poor citizens to rely on local customs and traditional leaders to arbitrate and settle disputes. While the use of traditional resolution processes is not always bad, many times these processes reinforce local patriarchic dominance and patron-clientelism that do not provide equal treatment under the law, a necessary requirement for developing the rule of law.

India’s is taking an innovative approach to a crucial problem facing many newer democracies. While elections are essential for a democratic system, there are also the issues of governing and establishing the authority of the state over the whole territory. These issues are critical for developing and maintaining popular support for democracy. Countries that hold legitimately democratic elections but fail to meet the difficult task of establishing and expanding the capacity of the state will be short lived or extremely fragile. It is in the spaces where state institutions fail to fill activity that public frustration grows and potential alternative government types gain traction. India, the world’s largest democracy, faces many challenges, but if properly implemented this could go a long way to increasing the legitimacy and effectiveness of its democratic government.