India's Supreme Court, in its latest rationale of unrestrained judicial activism, is now suddenly claiming that it's a "myth" that the court cannot make laws.
The SC Thursday ordered that election commissioners (EC) be appointed by the President of India on the advice of a panel consisting of the Prime Minister, leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha (or leader of the largest opposition party), and the Chief Justice of India. The new process is similar to the one that chooses the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The judgment has done away with the practice that has been in vogue in India since independence, under which ECs were appointed by President on the advice of a council of ministers.
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On the charge of judicial activism, the five-judge bench led by Justice Joseph said that under the Constitution, which clothes citizens with fundamental rights, besides tasking the State with achieving the goals declared in the Directive Principles, judicial activism, as opposed to a mere passive role, “may be the much-needed choice”.
So they're now increasingly claiming the right to be unelected legislators. They don't want to just have the power to approve or strike down laws, they want to frame laws.
Apparently, they don't require any electoral mandate for this -- because they have "Mandate from Heaven"??
Something's going on here. I'm worried that chanakyas on the Supreme Court are suddenly feeling emboldened, perhaps by Hindenberg-Adani, and perhaps at the behest of foreign states displeased with India's foreign policy. Pakistan has long had this problem of unelected forces dismissing its elected govts, and perhaps we "SouthAsians" then all look alike to some on the other side of the world. The elected parliament had better quickly respond to reclain its exclusive authority over certain powers, and tell the Court to stay in its lane. Time for media critics to start rallying the public in support of constitutional integrity.
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