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Conclusion

Neither a Silver Bullet Nor a Hollow Hope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

By
Gerald N. Rosenberg ,
Shishir Bail  and
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Edited by
Gerald N. Rosenberg ,
Sudhir Krishnaswamy  and
Shishir Bail
Gerald N. Rosenberg
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Affiliation:
Azim Premji University, Bangalore
Shishir Bail
Affiliation:
Azim Premji University, Bangalore
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Summary

The preceding chapters explored the effects of leading decisions of the Indian Supreme Court on the lives of India’s marginalized citizens. They addressed the question of whether the Indian Supreme Court is an effective agent of progressive social change or is constrained in furthering the rights of the relatively disadvantaged. We suggested in thethat the Indian Supreme Court might be capable of playing a progressive role because it has several advantages that other national high courts, particularly the US Supreme Court, lack. These include the broad sweep of constitutional rights in the Indian Constitution, the procedural improvisations the Court has made such as its public interest litigation (PIL) docket, its suo moto jurisdiction, its continuing mandamus process, and its heightened structural independence from the other branches of the central government. These suggest that Indian Supreme Court decisions might have the ability to make a real difference in the lives of India’s most disadvantaged citizens.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Qualified Hope
The Indian Supreme Court and Progressive Social Change
 , pp. 345 - 358
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Arvind, Ayesha, “Even Deities Can’t Stop Men from Urinating in Public, Says Court,” India Today, April 12, 2014.Google Scholar
Chandrachud,  Chintan, “Constitutional Interpretation.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution (Choudhry, Sujit, Khosla, Madhav & Mehta, Pratap Bhanu eds., 1st ed. India: Oxford University Press 2016).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Federalist No.78, in The Federalist Papers, ed. Rossiter, Clinton (New York, NY, New American Library, 1961).Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L., The Courts and Social Policy (Washington, D.C., Brookings, 1977).Google Scholar
McCann, Michael W., Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Qazi, Asher, “A Government of Judges,” JSD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2018.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N., The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? 2nd ed. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N., Positivism, Interpretivism, and the Study of Law, 21 L. & Soc. Inquiry 435, 455 (1996).Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N., “Review Section Symposium: Gauging the Impact of Law,” 21 L. & Soc. Inquiry 435 (1996).Google Scholar

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