The World Congress organised by the International Association of Constitutional Law in Athens this June was a stimulating experience. Delegates and invitees from 70 countries participated. I was the only Indian. The subjects for discussions were wide-ranging — for instance, judicial review of politically sensitive questions. The consensus was that if the decision, though political in character, had legal implications and prejudicially affected a person’s human rights, for example, a racially discriminatory immigration policy decision, judicial review was not barred. The audience was informed that our Supreme Court had not accepted the political question doctrine as an ipso facto bar to judicial review. The Israeli Supreme Court has taken a similar view.
Another topic that generated lively discussion was ‘Religion, State and Society’, which examined the relationship between religion and the state in view of the recent world developments and their implications for constitutions and constitutionalism. The participants at this session were professors from Singapore, Morocco and Greece, a federal judge of the US Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit, and former president of the Constitutional Court, Italy.
Another subject was ‘Limits on Power to revise a Constitution’. The audience was much interested in the basic structure doctrine propounded by our Supreme Court. I got numerous requests for the citation of Kesavanand Bharti. The topic ‘Balancing and Proportionality in Constitutional Review’ brought out fascinating facets of this doctrine, which is gaining ground in the Human Rights Court at Strasbourg and in Great Britain and other European countries. Incidentally, Chief Justice Patanjali Sastri had hinted at this concept in his landmark judgment in the V.G. Row case in 1952, when this doctrine was hardly known in Britain and in other jurisdictions.
There were excellent presentations amongst others by Ronald Dwarkin, Lord David Hope of the House of Lords, and Judge Lech Garlicki of the European Human Rights Court. The conference did not leave much time for sightseeing, except for a visit to the magnificent Acropolis.
