Democratic Institutions
Did the (US) Supreme Court Open the Door to Reviving One of Its Worst Decisions?
James B. Stewart July 2, 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/02/business/scotus-lochner-v-new-york.html
In 1905.. striking down a law that prevented bakery employees from working more than 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week, the court, under the 14th Amendment, enshrined a constitutional right to “freedom of contract” — that is, the freedom of people to form contracts without the government’s involvement. Based on the logic of Dobbs ( which overturned Roevs Wade on abortion rights), “there’s no principled way to hold back the tide that would return us to the law of the late 1800s on matters of privacy, reproduction, sexual intimacy and L.G.B.T.Q. equality.” Although Lochner itself is probably “too radioactive” for this court to embrace outright, the court’s overall hostility to government regulation of business and its celebration of individual freedom are clearly in the ascendant.
Comments relating to India on a Whatapp forward:
As talk of Lochner being revived by US Supreme Court is in itself frightening, particularly given the rule of the tycoons who lord over a gig economy, it won’t help to believe this is happening in a land far far away. Globalisation and work from home have already produced the perfect combo to ensure corporations get far more from workers than workers deserve to get for their labour and intellect. This will have implications for millions of Indians intertwined into the business emerging from USA.
Besides, there is the problem of the law of contract being more popular with a pro business approach: it will be argued by corporate honchos that they aren’t tyrants, that they are all sweet guys and one must always appreciate the power of free enterprise and entrepreneurship and not allow the State to impede this natural flow with a return to the “license Raj”. (I can hear Swaminathan Ankleshar Aiyer already shuffling his notes to write that out in tomorrows ET!)
What should worry us in India very deeply is that the TSR Subramanian report promoting major amendments to environmental laws to make them pro business, and based on the principle of “utmost good faith” in Businesses to be environmentally conscious, is not a principle limited to environmental regulation. Imagine that principle used by Ola, Uber, Zomato, Etc., and helping their workers work sone more in the belief it will help them get a better life sooner. Or of rhe really serious effort to privatise waste management, as in Bangalore, claiming again (and horrifically inhumanely) that it will build efficiency.
The point is bare to see: the Lochner rule is already in play in India: labour codes have been systematically diluted and now, as of last Friday, all major environmental laws are proposed to be fundamentally emasculated by decriminalising environmental violations. The weak implementation of environmental laws and the corrupt administration by various wings of the @MoEF have worked to build a narrative that its now better to believe corporates will step up to not damage the environment fearful more of stiff fines - which, as is now proposed, they are not.
If we allow these amendments, environment and labour standards in India will hit rock bottom, lawyers will become super super rich with the percentage they will collect defending corporations who have polluted but using the cause-effect rule (which cannot be easily proven by victims due to weak or no standards in regulation) and further beat down whatever we now have has normative regulatory praxis to protect us from the hell of environmental contamination.
The US SC has already ruled against tougher environmental standards using another principle, which most folks won’t even know existed, to protect dirty and exploitative businesses. In India, with the Indian Supreme Court attacking the fundamental rights of those who suffered the most egregious violence and sought justice, and has looked away when such rulings have been abused with impunity by police, we are set up for an unprecedented jurisprudential disaster. Just think deeply what it would be like for the Lochner rule joining hands with the systemic and flagrant abuse of police power, which the State is meant to employ to protect human rights, labour and the environment, and is doing just the opposite!
Justice in Crisis - https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/justice-in-crisis/
It is rather ironic that at a time when the CJI is addressing students at New York on democracy and senior Justice of Supreme Court D.Y.Chandrachud is speaking at King’s College,Cambridge on human rights and civil liberties,a vacation bench of SC here has administered an unexpected and rather uncalled-for blow to noted human rights activist Teesta Setalvad,prompting Gujarat Police and ATS to clamp umpteen charges on her and arrest her,leaving all decent citizens in shock.
The current debased American notion of democracy is merely limited to popular elections at set intervals,and civil rights be damned.Which India is of course is duly observing with a tamed EC running its programme as it suits the rulers’ interests.ALL independent institutions created over decades to check the outreach of overweening power have been similarly disarmed,and consultations ensuring informed consent of the citizens in decisions affecting their lives have now been effectively choked off.That mainstream media with one or two notable exceptions pose no challenge to rampaging power of that kind is an unacknowledged shame.And this is the democracy that is being drummed up all around the world by cock-a-hoop drummers.The world listens, but not in a daze but with a smothered snigger.
The twenty-one month Emergency declared in 1975 is often recalled like a faded memento to celebrate escape from the “greatest ever danger to democracy’ while something far more sweeping and far-reaching is being imposed irreversibly with relentless steps and brutal method on the entire structure of the democratic state.
by Hiren Gohain
28/06/2022
Justice in Crisis – 2
04/07/2022
Khalid’s case, Chomsky said in his recorded statement, “is one of many that shed a grim light on India’s system of justice during a period of repression, and often violence, that has been visibly undermining free institutions and the free practice of the rights of citizenship, part of the large-scale governmental effort to dismantle India’s honourable tradition of secular democracy and to impose a Hindu ethnocracy.”
Rajmohan Gandhi: “All of us know that there is a global struggle today between supremacy and equality, which is also a struggle between autocracy and democracy, and between coercion and human dignity. India is at the center of this struggle.
'Justice System Can't Sink Lower': Judges, Experts on Zubair's Bail Denial, Legal Lapses https://thewire.in/law/justice-system-cant-sink-lower-judges-experts-on-zubairs-bail-denial-legal-lapses
A former Supreme Court judge, a high court judge and advocates have pointed out the glaring legal lapses in the case against the fact-checker and his incarceration.
Zubair’s counsel, advocate Soutik Banerjee “The judge has not sat down yet after the lunch break. But I am shocked to see that DCP K.P.S. Malhotra has leaked in the media that our bail has been rejected and 14 days judicial custody has been granted. I have learnt this by looking at Twitter posts of news channels who are running this news…there are certain law reporters who have run this news and they are all citing K.P.S. Malhotra as the source of this information. It is extremely scandalous and it speaks of the status of rule of law in our country today that even before the Judicial Magistrate has sat and pronounced the order, the police have leaked the order to the media. How K.P.S. Malhotra knows about the order is beyond me and calls for serious introspection about the status of rule of law,” https://twitter.com/i/status/1543161739831050241
Zubair Targeted Because His Consistent Debunking of Fake News Has Become a Major Obstacle for BJP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf5j9AwV_Do Jul 6, 2022 The Wire's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan spoke at the July 4, 2022 Press Club of India meeting on the press freedom.
The meeting was held in the wake of the arrest of AltNews co-founder Mohammad Zubair.
'ज़ुबैर जैसे पत्रकार रास्ते से हट जाएं तो भाजपा बेरोक-टोक झूठ फैला सकती है' | Mohammed Zubair Jul 5, 2022 फैक्ट-चेक वेबसाइट ऑल्ट न्यूज़ के सह-संस्थापक मोहम्मद ज़ुबैर को बीते 27 जून को धार्मिक भावनाएं आहत करने के आरोप में दिल्ली पुलिस ने गिरफ़्तार कर लिया था. उनके ख़िलाफ़ एक अज्ञात ट्विटर एकाउंट के ज़रिये शिकायत दर्ज कराई गई थी. द वायर की पड़ताल में सामने आया है कि उस एकाउंट का संबंध भारतीय जनता युवा मोर्चा के एक पदाधिकारी और टेक फॉग नेटवर्क से है. इस पड़ताल को अंजाम देने वाले देवेश कुमार और नाओमी बार्टन से दीपक गोस्वामी की बातचीत. around 1200 in twitter list which keeps re-tweeting Zubair and Alt news posts tagging delhi police..- Deevash Kumar Data Analyst..
the country has still not learnt to appreciate wholly the roles assigned by the Constitution to each institution. CJI Ramana was speaking at a felicitation organised by the Association of Indian Americans in San Francisco.
“It is the vigorously promoted ignorance among the general public which is coming to the aid of such forces whose only aim is to run down the only independent organ. i.e., the judiciary. Let me make it clear. We are answerable to the Constitution and Constitution alone,” He added that “to enforce checks and balances envisioned in the Constitution, we need to promote constitutional culture in India. We need to spread awareness about the roles and responsibilities of individuals and institutions. Democracy is all about participation”.
Ethos of Indian & American independence and Judiciary role.. answerable to constitution alone.. Inclusivity key.. https://youtube.com/ember/JXi72IWxdgI?startt=758&end==1068
Full speech: Speech starts at https://youtu.be/JXi72IWxdgI?t=85
"Parties Wrongly Believe that the judiciary should endorse their actions, and causes ...": Chief Justice NV Ramana On Judiciary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXzdeeHAYRo Jul 3, 2022 Chief Justice of India NV Ramana on Saturday said people need to focus on issues that unite the country and not on those that divide it. "Inclusivity strengthens unity in society, which is key to peace and progress. We need to focus on issues that unite us. Not on those that divide us. In the 21st century, we cannot allow petty, narrow and divisive issues to dictate human and societal relationships. We have to rise above all the divisive issues to remain focused on human development. A non-inclusive approach is an invitation to disaster," Chief Justice Ramana said.
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