Thread by @gautambhatia88

Once this critical issue has been discussed, here is another suggestion.

A webinar on "Insulating the Judiciary from Powerful and Influential Senior Advocates."

(1/n)

Empirical research has shown - repeatedly - how chances of success in litigation fluctuate wildly depending on whether or not the litigant has a senior advocate appearing for them - especially in admissions cases, where briefs get tossed aside in seconds. Topical issue.

(2/n)

In his book, Courting the People, Anuj Bhuwania describes how powerful senior advocates were designated amici curae in crucial PILs, and became the drivers of those cases - to the exclusion of the people actually affected, and on whose "behalf" those PILs were apparently filed. +

+ I'm not going to name names here, but Bhuwania does, and charts out in detail the kind of influence these senior advocates exercised over litigation meant to enforce the rights of the most marginalised. It's all there in the book.

(3/n)

In 1997, while PUCL's case against phone tapping was being heard by the Supreme Court, senior advocates who happened to be *sitting* in Court at the time offered their assistance orally, and were made amici curae. PUCL went on to shape the law of surveillance in India, and not +

+ in a good way. Find it difficult to believe that this is how it happened? The judgment literally records it. Read it here:

indiankanoon.org/doc/31276692/

(4/n)

This is exactly what happened in the Azam Khan case, where judgment is pending, and which might become a significant case restricting the right to free speech. A senior advocate, sitting in court while the Court was hearing the case, "expressed his intention" to assist, and was +

+ made an amicus. Want to know who this senior advocate was? Read the order here:

main.sci.gov.in/jonew/bosir/or…

The amici in the case were then asked to frame the questions of law the Court would decide. So, literally, you are sitting in Court, a totally different case is going on +

+ you stand up, and get made an amicus - with the power to influence how the Court will interpret the fundamental rights of 1.3 billion people.

That is power.
That is influence.
That is unaccountable power and influence.

Not "social media diatribes."

(5/n)

And what do you say when individuals exercising such power and influence over the Court themselves pen op-eds darkly hinting at "lobbies", echoing the worst kind of prejudice-stirring that we normally see government law officers engaging in these days?

(6/n)

What is more likely to "influence" the Court? When figures who wield this much power accuse the Court of having set back the Indian economy because of its 2G/Spectrum judgments (without any evidence) [this happened], or some dude with a Twitter account venting?

(7/n)

So let's understand how power relations actually work, who holds and wields power, and who can actually exercise "influence."

(8/n)

Also, remember this: what X or Y says on social media is not even remotely relevant if the judgments of the Court are fundamentally indefensible, on the touchstone of legal reasoning. That is where the focus should be, at the present moment.

(9/n)

Last point.

Always be skeptical of people who punch down, instead of punching up.

And of those who always align with power structures instead of interrogating them.

(10/10)