The Hindu Business Line : Cudgels against judiciary

"The judiciary has overstepped its authority on countless occasions, overturning and in some cases just ignoring the legitimate will of the people. Legislatures for too long have washed their hands on controversial issues, leaving the judges to legislate from the bench. Right now they are ruling as an oligarchy. They are the kings of the land. Their decisions are not examples of a mature society but of a judiciary run amok. Judicial independence does not mean judicial supremacy. The response of the legislative branch has mostly been to complain. This era of constitutional cowardice must end. There is another way and that is to reassert its constitutional authority over the courts."

I give you three choices: The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr Somnath Chatterji; the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supremo, Mr Shibu Soren; the RJD MP, Mr Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav.

Whatever guess you make, you will be wrong. These are taken from the speeches delivered to a conservative conference held in Washington on April 7 by the leading lights of the Republican Party of the US, with the House Majoirty Leader, Mr Tom Delay, taking the centre stage. The reason for the angry outburst is the decision of both State and Federal courts, and the Supreme Court, rejecting appeals on behalf of Terri Schiavo, who was lying in a vegetative state for 15 years, for reinsertion of the feeding tube to keep her alive.

According to published reports, the conference has called for impeaching judges deemed to have ignored the will of Congress or to have followed foreign laws; passing bills to remove court jurisdiction from certain social issues; statutorily preventing the Democratic minority from blocking conservative judicial nominees; and using Congress's authority over court budgets to punish judges whom it considers to have overstepped their authority. The US Supreme Court Chief Justice, William H. Rehnquist, has expectedly decried such proposals as "unwarranted and ill-considered".

Footnote: Indian law-makers can proudly claim to be far ahead of the US in removing court jurisdiction in a number of laws, listing them in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

B. S. Raghavan

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