DailyPost 2765
DOES REENACTMENT RESURRECT CONSTITUTIONALITY?
Parliament is sovereign and can enact laws or amend laws going through the prescribed legislative process. What the prescribed legislative process has been brought to, the country has been experiencing session on session. We are not talking just of disruptions or parliamentary stalemates, that is only one part of the story, however much important it might be. The bigger issue is how bills are created, and pushed only through brute voting, as if anything becoming law does not impact anybody. If the government feels that the proposed laws are good, even with a vested interest, what checks and balances does democracy provide for?
Does even one MP take responsibility for the unconstitutionality of any law? Or any law being short of the constitutional parameters on the particular issue? Who in the government takes the final call that the law to be enacted fulfils all constitutional provisions? If any law is declared unconstitutional is anybody shown the door? Do all those who voted for the law have no role to play? They are the people who make a living out of law making and all their perks, power and influence is dependent on being an elected representative and hence a lawmaker.
Do the MPs have the capability to look into proposed law from the angle of constitutionality? That the law making does not go through the constitutionality with level of precision and strict legality, which all laws necessarily need to go through, seems to be a fact. The court judgements prove this point. If the law is not challenged in a court, does it mean we have to keep bearing the load of illegal laws, even if it is few. The bigger question is if it is struck down by the Supreme Court and may the constitutional bench, what happens? In the normal course it should be the burial of the law. Is it taken kindly?
Attempts have been made to bring it through the backdoor, in one form or the other through legislation, sometimes even an ordinance for immediate damage control. Are we ready to accept it wholeheartedly, that the Supreme Court is the final custodian of constitutional interpretation and of the laws? Which means any of its decisions should not be overturned in any manner, in the true spirit of the constitution. What does re-enactment of law to overturn a Supreme decision mean? Can it be, that we can’t even think of bringing a law declared illegal through the back door? If everything becomes a power and an ego tussle between institutions, which have been created to compliment to each other and have a healthy check over each other, where will we land up?
REENACTMENT OF AN OVERTURNED LAW IS FALSE CONSTITUTIONALITY.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.