Impact of Public Opinion on

Judicial Process
Dr. Archana Gadekar
Overview
• Judicial Process – Meaning
• Public Opinion- Meaning
• Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• Examples
• Conclusion
Judicial Process
• Judicial Process- essence –
whole complex phenomenon of
Court working
• Natural Force : between
Government and the governed
• Judiciary- called upon to decide
contentious issues between
parties – strictly in accordance
with the law and the
Constitution
Judicial Process
• Judges – great responsibility
• Judicial Process is both :
- Means of resolving disputes • Do their work in a formal
between identifiable and specified
parties
environment within a
- Process for making public
framework of procedure
policies which is designed to
secure justice.
Public Opinion

• an aggregate of the individual

views, attitudes, and beliefs
about a particular topic,
expressed by a significant
proportion of a community.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Values are adopted early in life,
in many cases from parents and
schools. They are not likely to
change, and they strengthen as
people grow older.
• Values They encompass beliefs about
religion—including belief (or
disbelief) in God—political
outlook, moral standards, and
the like.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Once an issue is generally recognized,
some people will begin to form
attitudes about it.
• If an attitude is expressed to others by
sufficient numbers of people, a public
•Formation of opinion on the topic begins to
emerge.
Attitude • Not all people will develop a particular
attitude about a public issue; some
may not be interested, and others
simply may not hear about it.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Most pervasive is the influence
of the social environment:
family, friends, neighbourhood,
place of work, church, or school.
•Environmental • People usually adjust their
attitudes to conform to those
Factors that are most prevalent in the
social groups to which they
belong.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• The news media focus the
public’s attention on certain
personalities and issues, leading
many people to form opinions
• Mass media about them.
• Government officials accordingly
have noted that communications
to them from the public tend to
“follow the headlines.”
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Interest groups, nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs), religious groups,
and labour unions (trade
unions) cultivate the formation and
• Interest Groups spread of public opinion on issues of
concern to their constituencies.
• These groups may be concerned with
political, economic, or ideological issues,
and most work through the mass media
as well as by word of mouth.
• Some of the larger or
more affluent interest groups around the
world make use of advertising and public
relations.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• One increasingly popular tactic is the
informal poll or straw vote.
• In this approach, groups ask their
members and supporters to “vote”—
usually by phone or via the Internet—
in unsystematic “polls” of public
opinion that are not carried out with
proper sampling procedures.
• Interest Groups • Multiple votes by supporters are often
encouraged, and once the group
releases its findings to credible media
outlets, it claims legitimacy by citing
the publication of its poll in a
recognized newspaper or online news
source.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Opinion leaders play a major
role in defining popular issues
and in influencing individual
opinions regarding them.
• Political leaders in particular can
turn a relatively unknown
•Opinion Leaders problem into a national issue if
they decide to call attention to it
in the media.
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors
• Opinion leadership is not confined
to prominent figures in public life.
An opinion leader can be any
person to whom others look for
guidance on a certain subject.
• Thus, within a given social
group one person may be regarded
as especially well-informed about
local politics, another as
knowledgeable about foreign
affairs, and another as expert in
real estate.
• These local opinion leaders are
generally unknown outside their
own circle of friends and
acquaintances, but
their cumulative influence in the
formation of public opinion is
substantial
Public Opinion: Influencing Factors

• Because psychological makeup,

personal circumstances, and
external influences all play a role
• Complex Influences in the formation of each
person’s opinions, it is difficult to
predict how public opinion on an
issue will take shape.
US Experience
• The decisions of the U.S. Supreme
Court are seldom without
controversy, and American history
has seen fierce public debate over
the Court’s proper role in the
democracy.
• With lifetime tenure, justices are in
principle immune from the
vagaries of public opinion.
• But new issues inevitably come to
the Court because of emerging
trends in society, and evolving
norms and values have always
been part of these cases.
• As the Court continues to weigh
momentous cases on important
social issues, the history of past
decisions, such as Roe v. Wade,
continue to be contemplated by
legal scholars.
• Did the Court move too “fast”?
• How should decisions on evolving
social issues be adjudicated in light
of prevailing views in society?
US Experience
• Using qualitative data and
historical methods, Barry
Friedman asserts with
confidence that “we the people”
influence the decisions of the • Despite their best efforts to
U.S. Supreme Court. validate basic claims about the
• Using quantitative data and effect of public opinion on the
statistical methods, political Court, the evidence remains
scientists are not so sure. mixed at best.
US Experience

• In the US, the O J Simpson

case attracted a lot of pre-trial
publicity.
• The judge was not prejudiced by
• Some persons even media campaign or public
demonstrated in judges’ robes opinion.
outside the court and
lampooned Etoo, the trial judge.
• Yet, Simpson was acquitted.
Judicial Decisions: Indian Experience
• Whether Jalli Kattu should be
allowed or banned? • Beef Ban
• Whether women should be • Right to Privacy
allowed entry temples?
• Singing of National Anthem
• Should Triple Talaq be repealed?
• Motor Vehicles Act and the fines
• Should the rights of LGBTs be
recognised and S. 377 of Indian • Decriminalisation of Adultery
Penal Code be Decriminalised?
Jallikattu
• people have lost their lives, -
were spectators in the event.
• Even before details of the death
came in, people on Twitter and
other social media platforms
have been expressing their
displeasure.
LGBT Rights
• Supreme Court of India
ultimately ruled to strike down a
Victorian-era anti-sodomy law -it
hardly caught anyone by
surprise.
• A groundswell of public opinion
had developed against the law
and the court’s own
jurisprudence in the lead-up to
oral arguments in the case had
made the result virtually
inevitable.
• (Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of
India), landmark moment
• the court strike a blow against a
law that deeply impinged the
rights of the LGBTQ community,
• it also laid a foundation that
could well help usher India into a
more equal future, shorn of one
of the country’s gravest colonial
legacies.
Decriminalising Adultery
• Criminalising consensual sexual • SC Verdict- on 158 year old law
relations is not the only
provision that makes the law
archaic: • What about sanctity of marriage
???
• It allowed only a man to
prosecute another man for the • Public Opinion
act of committing adultery with
his wife.
Sabrimala Verdict
• 1990- A petition was filed in the Kerala
High Court seeking a ban on entry of
women inside the Sabarimala temple.

1991- The Kerala High Court had upheld the

restriction of women of certain age entry
inside the holy shrine of Lord Ayyappa.
• issue was regarding the 2006- A petition was filed in the Supreme
ban on the entry of Court by the Indian Young Lawyers
Association seeking entry of women
women aged between 10 between 10 to 50 years.
-50 in the temple • 2008- The matter was referred to a three-
judge bench two years later.
Sabrimala Verdict
• January 2016- The court had
questioned the ban, saying this
cannot be done under the
Constitution.
• April 2016- Chief Minister Oomen
Chandy of Kerala informed the SC
that it is bound to protect the right
to practice the religion of
Sabarimala devotees.
• November 7, 2016- The Kerala
Government had told the Supreme
Court that it was in favour of
allowing women inside the
sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
2017- The Supreme Court referred
the case to the Constitution bench.
Sabrimala Verdict
• September 2018- A five-judge
bench of Supreme Court allowed
the entry of women of all ages in
the revered shrine. • The state government sought
time to implement the verdict,
• held that any exception placed however even after the entry
on women because of biological was allowed a large number of
differences violates the followers camped outside the
Constitution - that the ban shrine prevent the entry of
violates the right to equality women of all ages.
under Article 14, and freedom of
religion under Article 25.
Sabrimala Verdict
• This verdict led to protests by
people who oppose the verdict.
• Several women attempted to enter
Sabarimala despite threats of
physical assault against them but
failed to reach the sanctum
sanctorum.
• Two women belonging to the
previously barred age group finally
entered the temple defying
protests on 2 January 2019 with
the help of police through the back
gate.
• Temple was closed for purification.
• Clearly, we find that this verdict
although Constitutionally valid but
had invoked a mixed Public
opinion.
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• Conflicting Rights :
Freedom of Speech and
Expression
v.
Right to free Trial
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• In Zahira Habibullah Sheikh v.
State of Gujarat
• the Supreme Court explained
that a “fair trial obviously would
mean a trial before an impartial
Judge, a fair prosecutor and
atmosphere of judicial calm.
• Fair trial means a trial in which
bias or prejudice for or against
the accused, the witnesses, or
the cause which is being tried is
eliminated.”
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• 200th Law Commission of India Report
• Law Commission Chairman Justice M.
Jagannadha Rao
• There is today a feeling,” he explains,
“that in view of the extensive use of
the television and cable services, the
whole pattern of publication of news
has changed and several such
publications are likely to have
prejudicial impact on the suspects,
witnesses and even Judges and in
general, on the administration of
justice.
• Legal Position
• He points out that under the Indian
criminal justice system, a suspect or
accused is entitled to a fair procedure
and is “presumed to be innocent till
proved guilty in a court” and no one
“can be allowed to prejudge or
prejudice his case by the time it goes
to trial.”
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• On November 3, 2006, former
chief justice of India Y K
Sabharwal expressed concern
over the recent trend of the
media conducting ‘trial’ of cases
before courts pronounce
judgments, and cautioned:
• “According to law an accused is
presumed to be innocent till
proved guilty in a court of law,
and is entitled to a fair trial.
• So, it is legitimate to demand
that nobody can be allowed to
prejudge or prejudice one’s
case? Why should judges be
swayed by public opinion?”
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• The Law Commission's report • It reminds the media that while
expresses concern over the fact freedom of speech and
that there is very little restraint expression is an important right,
in the media insofar as the it is not absolute inasmuch as
administration of criminal justice the Constitution itself has placed
is concerned. “reasonable restrictions” on it,
• with the restrictions
encompassing the fair
administration of justice as
protected by the Contempt of
Courts Act, 1971.
Impact of Public Opinion on Judicial Process
• It has suggested an amendment
to of the Contempt of Courts
Act.
• has suggested that the high
• Law Commission court be empowered to direct a
Recommendation print or electronic medium to
postpone publication or telecast
pertaining to a criminal case.