Saturday, July 10, 2010

Indian constitution

Now that i have read the human right law, it makes me an expert on Indian Indian constitution. Doesn't it?

Here is what i think are some issues with Indian constitution -

1. Temporal factor. The only place where time is mentioned in IC is in the context of right to education where it says that GOI should aim to provide free and compulsory education within 10 yrs. It has been 6 decades and yet it remains elusive. My issues is that the IC fails to use temporal factor more often especially in case of preferential treatment. For example in case of reservations, (yes on some level i do understand and even agree on reservations); but i think it has to come with a time plan on when the preferential treatment will cease to exist. Reservation exists solely to promote the under privileged sections which is fine but assume in an ideal world (which is assumed when IC is written as it is an ideal document), if a backward section is given some privileges and assume that the execution is fool proof, because of the special privileges, after some time, the section will no longer be backward because it will get equal standings with other sections. Thus making the preferential treatment a discrimination. So, all preferential treatments must come with a time factor. Moreover, this time factor should also act as a deadline so that organizations strive to deliver before deadlines. Ofcourse for fair play there should be clauses for time extensions but with penalties as well.
So, i claim that it is reservation is okay as long as we say that it will get removed by 2020 by which we believe that it will no longer make sense.

2. Preventive detention - Many have written about it, the fact that in India, you can detain a person under preventive detention even in normal circumstances (meaning in non-emergency situations), this makes this law the most dangerous law. Here is what should happen here - Either this law should be there only in emergency situations, if not then atleast the powers to preventively detain a person should exist with a special body, instead of the normal police. Moreover, this law should come with clauses about Individual responsibility model when individuals responsible to detain others will face harsh punishments if they break the law. Preventive detention does not give anyone the right to torture. The rights of a detainee are sacrosanct and individuals who violate detainees' rights should be punishable. Furthermore, there should be an independent body (such as NHRC) with suo-moto powers and also powers to arrest and judge the perpetrator.

3. Remove Muslim law: India like western nations should bite the bullet and introduce uniform civil law for all religions without any preferential treatments. Special casing has no ends because of India's cultural diversity and moreover Muslim law is a very tricky business. They have chosen to include law as they seem to fit and some of the laws are opposed to the principles of HR.

4. Due process: Although the Supreme court has started to use "Due process" in lot many judgments, i believe that "due process" should be added to the law itself and hence should be formally defined. It will help a lot in future cases.

Overall, many people have many issues with IC and some are debatable. Above are the ones that i feel about quite strongly.

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