Differing Interpretations

A number of amendments exist because Parliament and the judiciary, at different times, read the same constitutional text differently. When such disagreements arose, Parliament sometimes chose to amend the Constitution to make one particular interpretation the settled, authoritative one — asserting its own reading over the judiciary's. This is a normal part of democratic politics: different institutions can genuinely interpret the scope of their own and each other's powers differently.

The period between 1970 and 1975 saw this happen especially often. Three issues stood out: the relationship between Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy, the scope of the right to private property, and the scope of Parliament's own power to amend the Constitution. In each case, when the judiciary's rulings did not match what Parliament wanted, Parliament responded with fresh amendments to override the effect of those rulings — a pattern that can only really be understood in the context of the wider political history of that period. …