Political Interference in Amendment of Laws:
-Vishal Patel
Amendment in law is common practice across the world which means changing the law according to the current need of society. And every country has different rules related to this amending power, some of those are very rigid, some are very easy and some lies between these two. While amending these laws there is sometimes political interference, sometime this political interference can benefit the citizen of that State.
How Political interference can be done?
To understand how political interference is done, let’s take the example of our country India. In India, for amending the constitution either a simple, special, absolute, or effective majority is
needed according to the matter of the amendment[1]. Getting this majority is often easy as most of the seats in the Parliament are taken or covered by the ruling party. The prime example is the number of amendments done to the Indian Constitution during the Indira Gandhi regime is the most due to the number of seats his party had in the Parliament. Often this majority can lead to Political Interference in the amendment of laws.
Let take example of USA, there the amendment of constitution is provided under Article 5 [2] of The Constitution of United State of America, which says:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”[3]
As you can see in United State also the majority of 2/3rd of the Congress of the US is needed, and there too most of the time these seats are occupied by the supporter of the ruling party, thus it will be easy to have political interference.
The main reason for Political interference is the supremacy of the ruling party in an executive institution like Parliament. If you are anywhere in the world most of the law amended is proposed by the ruling party.
Is Political interference always wrong impact?
There is not always a negative impact. There are also some positive impacts of any political interference, as it may prove to be helpful for those who are directly associated with or indirectly. For example, if a ruling party
[1] Ind. Const. art. 368
[2] U.S Const. art.5
[3] Id.
makes any tax law that benefits any particular district or area, it can directly benefit the people who live in that area, and also benefit indirectly those who are associated with that area, like if anyone doing business there, have any relative in that area, etc. If you see the 42nd amendment act of the Indian Constitution which is nicknamed ‘Mini Constitution’ or ‘Indira Constitution’, due to the political interference or interest it has but it has some positive like
- Part 4(A) Fundamental Duties provided citizen with some duties that citizen has to perform for the betterment of themselves and their country.
- Introduction of Article 39 (A), Article 43 (A), and Article 43 (F) were added as DPSP.
- It allowed Supreme Court to transfer the cases from one high court and another high court and also redefine the High Court’s writ jurisdiction. It reduces the workload of the high court allowing early disposal of cases.
- It allowed the Union government to deploy the armed force where the law and order is impossible to maintain.
If you see, these changes help develop the nation and people, and thats why these features are still present in the constitution even after the other changes have been repealed through various bills.
Sometimes political interference can help any particular society to grow, which will otherwise not be possible for a very long time, for example, the Citizenship Amendment Act, of 2019 is one of the most controversial laws in the recent time due to its nature of proving citizenship in 5 years instead of 10 years to those people who comes under the definition of Hindu Religions. Here opposition leaders and experts had said this was done because the ruling party has the mindset of Hindu religions, and that’s why they have political influence and made this law accordingly they also said it will attract the Hindu religion voter which makes up 80% of India’s population. But eventually, it helps some of those refugees who fall under the Hindu religion definition, by giving them citizenship they were able to take the benefit that a citizen allows.
From the above example we can see that Political Interference in amending law can help the citizen or society or country whose result can sometimes be observed in no time but sometimes takes many years, as a result of Part 4(A), when it was inserted wasn’t being observed instant but its result you can observe like most of the parents sending their kid to school for primary education, increasing the literacy rate of India.
As there is a famous saying that everything has two faces, one positive and one negative, so the negative effects of the Political Interference can lead to disturbance of the country’s basic structure, lead to central supremacy, and can disturb public order.
As we have earlier taken the example of 42nd amendment act of Indian Constitution for the positive feature of it, now let’s look at the negative side which is done for the political interest of the party, they are
- It changes the Political system toward Parliament sovereignty.
- Reduces the power of the supreme court giving enormous power to the government to amend the law as they want.
- Increase of Parliament duration from 5 years to 6 years.
- Transferred power from the state to the central government, disturbing the federal structure of the constitution.
- Prioritizing State policy over Fundamental rights.
If you see the negative feature of the 42nd Amendment Act which was Politically interfered with, here you can observe that firstly it is disturbing the basic structure of Government which was defined by the Court in many cases like Minerva Mill v Union of India[1] and Kesavananda Bharti case[2] , secondly this type amendment can lead to disturbance of Public Order, thirdly this type of amendments can lead to dictatorship and fourthly mainly disturbing the fundamental rights of People also disturbance of principle of Democracy; secondly, this type of amendment can lead to disturbance of Public Order, thirdly this type of amendment can lead to dictatorship, and fourthly mainly disturbs the fundamental rights of People and also disturbance of principle of Democracy.
Conclusion
For the conclusion you can observe from above example, how Political Interference have Positive and Negative impact, and each and every individual have different opinion on it but in the prospective of 42nd Amendment Act, you can observe that the weightage of the Negative Impact is more then positive impact as negative impact also include the violation of the two basic principle of a good society i.e., Fundamental Rights and Principle of Democracy.
From my analysis I can say the Political Interference is more harm then good it can do. Thus, Political Interference should not be done and should be stopped in amending any law.
[1] Minerva Mill v Union of India (Supreme Court of India 1980).
[2] Kesavananda Bharti v. Union of India (Supreme Court of India 1973)