Justice Soumen Sen on Constitution as a Growing Tree at Parul University!
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Soumen Sen is the Chief Justice of the High Court of Kerala. He spoke at the Samvidhan Pe Charcha 4.0 making his talk more of a constitutional history, giving direct instructions to the students, and calling the one-hour speech his only chance to get his first good sleep in a week from the mooters.
A growing tree and a Constitution the people wrote
The central figure in Justice Sen’s mind was the Constitution, a tree under which the Republic finds shade, wise enough to pass on the wisdom of the past, and yet young enough to communicate with the problems of the present. It is unique in balancing continuity and transformation, freedom and social justice, and diversity and national unity, he said. He cast doubt on the notion that Indian democracy was brought from outside and said that India has its own ancient republics and assemblies that restricted the power of kings, and that Indians were the authors of their own constitution and entrusted the universal right to vote to all adults. He said that Hansa Jivraj Mehta, who had close association with Vadodara, ensured that the universal declaration of human rights was not limited to men but all human beings.
The journey of Article 21
He said Article 21 was one of the most theatrical in the Constitution. The American word ‘due process’ had been intentionally omitted from the draft and in A.K. Gopalan, the Court interpreted the meaning of due process very narrowly. During the Emergency, in ADM Jabalpur, a majority ruled that no person could claim a right to seek his habeas corpus, while Justice H. R. Khanna disagreed. The 44th Amendment subsequently readopted Articles 20 and 21 and made them insusceptible to suspension and in Maneka Gandhi the Court re-interpreted the due process that the framers had excluded into the margin, to mean that the due process used in any procedure affecting liberty had to be fair, just and reasonable. From there, Article 21 morphed to include livelihood, health, shelter, a clean environment, and the courtroom had become a venue where the long-overlooked voice could be heard in public interest litigation.
Basic structure, constitutional morality and new technology
On the basic structure doctrine he offered a memorable formulation.
“Transformative constitutionalism and the basic structure are not in conflict. One gives a constitution its purpose, the other secures that purpose with permanence.”
Transformation without structure risks revolution, he said, and structure without transformation risks stagnation. He described constitutional morality, after Dr. B.R Ambedkar, as something that must be cultivated rather than assumed, and then turned to artificial intelligence, biometrics, algorithmic decision-making and surveillance. These technologies are new, he said, but the questions are old: who holds power, what are its limits, is the individual treated fairly, and can the decision be challenged? In Puttaswamy the Court recognised privacy as a fundamental right without amending a single word, proof that the living Constitution can meet new facts.
A direction for future lawyers!
Speaking directly to the students, Justice Sen said law is one of the few professions in which one’s daily work can change the course of another person’s life, a liberty behind a criminal case, a home behind a property dispute, a person unheard for years behind a constitutional question. He left them a lesson worth keeping.
“The strength of an argument does not come from the volume in which it is delivered, but from the quality of thought behind it.”
A justice system succeeds, he concluded, not when its finest institutions are open to those who can pay, but when the doors of justice remain open to everyone. He asked the students to think of the person walking home on a footpath, the worker protected from degrading labour, the child who deserves an education and the prisoner who remains a human being, and to make the question of how to reach them the compass of their professional lives. Ready to turn your passion for justice into a career? Explore law programs at Parul University, including B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), B.B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), and B.Com. LL.B. (Hons.), and build your legal expertise, sharpen your critical thinking, and get future-ready for exciting opportunities in litigation, corporate law, and beyond!
