Category: India
-
The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution
Mila Versteeg and I have just posted to SSRN a paper that might be of interest to readers of this blog entitled “The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution“. It follows up on an earlier article, imminently forthcoming in the California Law Review, in which we took a very bird’s eye view of the…
-
A constitutional right to food for India?
The New York Times reports that India’s Congress Party is mulling a constitutional amendment that would guarantee a right to food. Some quick background info, not in the Times piece, to suggest that it might not be much of a surprise (or, as a practical matter, a big deal) if this were to happen: (1)…
-
When Should Supreme Court Judges Retire?
India is the latest state to debate the proper age at which Supreme Court justices should retire. At present, Indian Supreme Court Justices retire at age 65. The current proposal would raise the age of retirement by three years to 68.
-
Indo-Pakistani Constitutional Convergence?
The distinctions in constitutional structure between India and Pakistan—not to mention their differences in political culture—are as sharp as they are numerous. To name but a few, India is a federal state tending toward decentralization in a parliamentary system whose constitution proclaims its commitment to secular democracy.
-
The Lawrence of India (Pt 2) (the Supreme Court Sequel)
In a recent post (7/5/09), I reported and commented on the decision of the Delhi High Court in NAZ Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors, reading down 377 of the Indian Criminal Code, so as to apply only to “nonconsensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors” – a decision…
-
The Lawrence of India?
In Lawrence, when Justice Kennedy surveyed practices regarding the criminalization of sodomy in comparable democracies, a notable omission from his analysis was India: it was clearly an outlier, compared to other major “free” constitutional democracies, in continuing to criminalize sodomy in 2004.