Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | By mostly jailing Dalits, Muslims & tribals, India is making the same mistakes as the US -Devesh Kapur

By mostly jailing Dalits, Muslims & tribals, India is making the same mistakes as the US -Devesh Kapur

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jan 8, 2018   modified Modified on Jan 8, 2018
-ThePrint.in

While the US exemplifies the effect of discriminatory enforcement in an unequal society, a weak state and low conviction rates in India are complicit in the failure to stem the violence against marginalised groups.

It is virtually an axiom in development circles to say that the rule of law is necessary for a country’s economic development and advancing accountability and justice. Proponents of the former emphasise the importance of rule of law for the sanctity of property rights and contract enforcement. Those emphasising the latter, go back to John Locke’s contention that, “wherever law ends, tyranny begins”.

And yet, not only the intellectual evolution of the concept but even in practice in many countries, there has been a glossing over of the wide overlap between rule of law and rule by law. The latter has conveniently served as a tool of oppression of governing elites, whether wielded through the content of laws (as in apartheid South Africa) or its selective application, not just in authoritarian countries but in democracies as well.

A comparison between India and the United States prison data is instructive on how easily the rule of law can slide into rule by law.

An early but significant development in the understanding of the concept of rule of law — from restraints against governments to preserve the freedom of individuals to a more positive and facilitative idea — occurred through the “Delhi Declaration” in 1959. That January the International Congress of Jurists met in New Delhi and recognised that the rule of law was not only “to safeguard and advance the civil and political rights of the individual in a free society, but also to establish social, economic, educational and cultural conditions under which his legitimate aspirations and dignity may be realized”.

But then the importance of rule of law went into hibernation over the next three decades. Then suddenly from the early 1990s, it became the idée fixe among economists and development professionals.

However, the concept’s elasticity and conflation with another elastic concept called ‘governance’, led the economist Dani Rodrik to wonder, “Am I the only economist guilty of using the term [rule of law] without having a good fix on what it really means? … Well, maybe the first one to confess to it.”

In general, the rule of law is undoubtedly stronger in a country like the US than in India, because of greater capacity and competence and less corruption in the courts and police. But not all the consequences are as salubrious.

Let’s take one of the end points of rule of law: prisons. After all, accountability and enforcement of the rule of law means that violators are punished and end up in jail. To quote Thomas Fuller, “Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish.”

One might expect India’s weaker state would allow individuals more latitude to twist and evade the law, reminiscent of what Foucault called the “perpetual give-and-take between legality and law-breaking” under which official authority operates. Presumably this would be much less in the United States — but at what cost?

Please click here to read more.

ThePrint.in, 5 January, 2018, https://theprint.in/2018/01/05/a-tale-of-indian-and-american-prisoners/


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close