Contribution of the Judiciary

The long controversy between the judiciary and Parliament ultimately turned on a genuine and important disagreement. Parliament believed it had both the power and the responsibility to make laws — including constitutional amendments — that would further the interests of the poor, the backward and the needy. The judiciary's response was not to deny that these were legitimate goals, but to insist that even well-intentioned, pro-people measures must operate within the framework the Constitution itself provides, and must not bypass legal procedure. Its reasoning was that once you allow legal procedure to be bypassed even for good reasons, you also hand power-holders an excuse to use their power arbitrarily whenever it suits them — and democracy is as much about checks on the arbitrary use of power as it is about the well-being of the people. …