Article Review

Creative role of supreme court of India in creating and protecting human

rights
-Soli J Sorabjee

BY:
Albert Benjamin
1473
Sem IV
The article is a very precise contemporary analysis on the role of the judiciary in protection
and renovation of human rights. It primarily deals with the intelligent adaptation of the
fundamental right to suit the political, economical and social scenario and live up to the
expectations, under the supervision of the supreme court. The author has used a very
interesting approach by substantiating the arguments by examples. However one of the major
drawbacks is the lack of detail or credibility of the provided examples. Hence the article does
a great job in providing appreciable surface knowledge in the matter but fails to provide
further details or in depth knowledge from a legal perspective. The lack of usage of cases or
any relevant citations for that matter proves the point that it was just a plain account of the
author’s take on the matter. Furthermore the examples used were ones very popular among
the legal fraternity which is both a bane and a boon.

Further the negative claims made throughout the article lack any form of reasoning or
substantive proof as to why it is so. Hence striking the readers as just baseless remarks made
by the author. The overall style prevailing in the article is that of an essay that was cut short
and lacks the brevity or resourcefulness required for a legal article. The article fails to shed
any light on article 13 and its interpretation, which is the foundation for the credibility of the
fundamental rights. The author talks about how various interpretations given to the few
fundamental rights have led to the creation and careful adaptation of the rights to cope up
with the changing political, social and economic scenario. However it does not deal with
recent developments such as the colourful interpretation of the fundamental rights especially
article 21 in striking down articles 377 and 497 of the IPC. However it talked about the
improved scope of article 21 in privacy, international laws etc. A notable part was the
mention of the right to quality of life which was deduced from article 21. However the
paragraph following it just stray away from the topic.

An innovative concept was the classification of the idea of rights in terms of waves, which
the author later describes. The first wave originating around the US Bill of Rights and the
French Declaration of rights of men. This would prove to be highly efficient as opposed to
the currently used classification as generations. However the next two waves mentioned are
vague and lack the necessary specificity in detail. Further considering the precise nature of
the article, the relevance of the same for the current topic is limited.
Furthermore the article fails to provide the necessary importance to the role of different
institutions involved in the same apart from the Supreme Court, such as The National
Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) which are instrumental in
analysing the bigger picture. The mention of the changing deduction of rights in other nations
was just a passing mention and lacked the necessary contrast between it and the system in
India or appreciable levels of specificity. Unfortunately, the example provided in the article
for contrast between freedom of expression and enhancement of infrastructure is an utter
blunder as the latter too is attributable to fundamental rights( Article 21- Rights to live with
dignity). Further the mention of DPSP as a derivative of Human Rights by the Judiciary was
an interesting contribution by the author.

In a nutshell, the article was a plain account of the take of the author on the subject. Though
it was considerably small it failed to provide precise information to the subject and hence
lacks the content brevity of a legal article. However owing to the interesting take of the
author on the subject it was a good read.