Can Pratap Bhanu Mehta write a single sentence which does not contain a stupid lie? Sure. Why not? The thing is easily done. Still, when writing for the Indian Express, it appears he takes special care to ensure that moronic mendacity distinguishes his every line.
Consider his latest rant against the Supreme Court-
In political science literature there is a familiar term — democratic barbarism.
Google 'democratic barbarism'. You find nothing. This is not a 'familiar term' in 'Political Science literature.' PBM's lie is stupid because his readers can easily check the internet and discover the truth.
Democratic barbarism is often sustained by a judicial barbarism.
The term 'judicial barbarism' refers to cruel and unusual punishments or the survival of archaic decision processes- e.g. trial by combat, dunking a witch and burning her if she doesn't drown, etc. etc.
Barbarians may be egalitarian. They are not democratic because their polities have not acquired the necessary sophistication. Barbarians may speak of doing justice. But they do not have protocol bound juristic processes involving a specialized class of lawyers and an independent Judiciary.
The term “barbarism” has several components.
No it doesn't. It is not a 'term of art' in any discipline. It may have different connotations- but that is equally true of the mot juste applicable to PBM which is 'libtard' .
The first is the overwhelming appearance of arbitrariness in judicial decision-making.
Nonsense! Barbarism has no 'judicial decision-making' whatsoever. Stupid shitheads will complain of 'the overwhelming appearance of arbitrariness' if judicial decision-making is purely stare decisis and not arbitrary at all. This is because ultracrepidarian cunts- like PBM who isn't a lawyer but has views on what the Bench should do- are unable to distinguish the projections of their own prejudiced minds from the intersubjective appearance of things.
The application of law becomes so dependent on the arbitrary whims of individual judges
in the opinion of a cretin
that the rule of law or constitutional terms
in the considered opinion of a fucking cretin
no longer have any meaning. The law becomes an instrument of oppression;
says PNB, a notorious shithead
or, at the very least, it aids and abets oppression.
and is also responsible for PNB's skull being full of shit.
An arbitrary action is one which is not protocol bound. It can not be the case that Judges act arbitrarily if those protocols are observed. No doubt, an existing protocol may be considered deficient in some way and may, in the course of time, be replaced. But that process of judicial and legal reform must itself be protocol bound. The ultracrepidarian rantings of a 'political scientist' who tells stupid lies about 'democratic barbarism' have no probative value.
This usually means weak protection for civil liberties and dissenters and an unusual degree of deference to state power, especially in constitutional matters.
Nonsense! If Judges can act arbitrarily, they are likely to protect civil liberty and roll back the power of the State so as to gain obligatory passage point status and extract a rent- perhaps of a reputational sort.
It is only if Judges can't do anything- their hands being tied by various protocols- that the Executive can act arbitrarily. PBM is a fucking cretin.
The court also becomes excessively concerned with its version of lese majesty: Like a scared monarch, the court cannot be seriously criticised or mocked.
But lese majeste is a well defined legal offense. It is not arbitrary. Similarly, contempt of court is a self-regarding, protocol bound, judicial power. The British bench- under attack by Right Wing tabloids and Tory Home Ministers- surrendered this power. Who can fight Rupert Murdochl? The Indian Bench, too, may surrender this power in which case it will not be able to enforce its decisions. This means it will have to embrace a much broader 'doctrine of political question'. Indeed, this may be the direction in which- facing relentless criticism- it feels obliged to move. This is probably a good thing.
Its majesty is secured not by its credibility but by its power of contempt.
PBM has no credibility because he has never said anything useful or true. He is welcome to show his contempt for the Bench. But this does not alter the fact that he is a fucking cretin. It may be that the Indian Bench will come, or has come, to be seen as useless and stupid. But, it is because it has lost credibility that its 'power of contempt' has eroded- as in the case of Prashant Bhushan. But then, the Bench only gained salience when the Executive was weak and shitheads like PBM thought PIL was a panacea. But, the thing is a double edged sword.
And, finally, there is barbarism in a much deeper sense.
There is no 'deeper sense' to barbarism precisely because the term only applies to an unsophisticated polity lacking deep structure.
It occurs when the state treats a section of its own citizenry as enemies of the people.
Every State, which is not barbaric, locks up or kills 'enemies of the people'- e.g. homicidal maniacs, serial rapists, traitors and insurrectionaries.
The purpose of politics is no longer equal justice for all:
The purpose of politics is not 'equal justice for all'. This may be claimed to be an instrument for a particular political ideology or platform. But it is not its purpose. How is it that I can't set up a Court and demand that the Chief Justice and the Prime Minister appear before me? Surely everybody should have an equal right to deploy the powers of the Bench or the Executive?
It is to convert politics into a game of victims and oppressors and ensure that your side comes up the winner.
This is best done by reducing the availability and effectiveness of judicial remedies. PBM, cretin that he is, is arguing for the disintermediation of the Judiciary just when an Administration he disapproves of is going from strength to strength. Truly, this man will cut off his own nose to spite his face.
The Indian Supreme Court was never perfect. It has had its dark periods before. But the signs are that it is slipping into judicial barbarism in the senses described above.
Judicial barbarism means reliance on cruel and unusual punishments or trial by combat etc. There are no signs that any such thing is happening. The fact that PBM does not like some Supreme Court Judgments does not mean the Court is barbaric. It means PBM has shit inside his brain.
This phenomenon is not just a matter of individual judges or individual cases.
It it is indeed a 'phenomenon' it must be evidenced by the behaviour of individual judges in individual cases. PBM would have to supply a superior legal analysis of those cases in order to prove his point. He can't do it because his brains are full of shit.
It is now a systematic phenomenon with deep institutional roots.
PBM is saying that judicial arbitrariness is 'systematic' and arises out of 'institutional' arrangements. But, that requires major Constitutional change of a type India has not seen since the Seventies. In Europe, by contrast, Brussels did insist on far reaching constitutional change- e.g. the setting up of a Supreme Court in the UK- though there has been push back against this in Visegrad countries. There is speculation that post Brexit Britain will substantially curb the powers of the Bench- perhaps to its great relief. Had the Democrats swept the polls, Biden would have been under pressure to change the law so as to 'pack the Bench'. The fact is, increased judicial independence is a double edged sword. The libtards, being as stupid as shit, cheered for what they had previously booed in the belief that Judges would be on their side. Now, having been disillusioned, they babble paranoid nonsense. PBM is merely part of a global trend amongst Professors of shite subjects.
It is also part of a global trend, of a piece with developments in Turkey, Poland and Hungary, where the judiciary aids this kind of democratic barbarism.
And the Liberal Academy aids Paranoid babbling of a wholly useless kind. Of course, from time to time, not all Professors of shite subjects will babble equally paranoid nonsense. Some, or all, from time to time, will preserve the decencies merely by way of camouflage.
To be sure, not all judges succumb to this; there are still pockets of resistance in the system. There will also be instances of grand pronouncement of principles on behalf of liberty, an occasional relief granted to a deserving plaintiff, to preserve a thin veneer of respectability for the institution, while its daily practice continues to abet the rot.
Non-STEM subject instruction at the post-grad level is rotten to the core. Doctorates of the type PBM possesses are but Cretinism Credentialized.
So what are the symptoms of judicial barbarism?
Cruel and unusual punishment, trial by combat- stuff of that sort.
The court has refused to do timely hearings of cases that go to the heart of the institutional integrity of a democracy:
Advocates have failed to make the case that such hearings are necessary.
The electoral bonds case, for example.
Read the petitions in this respect and marvel at their illiteracy
It is no secret that the rules for the grant or denial of bail by the Supreme Court, and, correspondingly, by several high courts, have reached new levels of arbitrariness.
The Arnab Goswami case is scandalous.
But it is important to underscore a point here.
It is important to shit upon PBM on a regular basis.
As any undertrial knows, encountering justice in the Indian legal system has always had an element of luck to it.
No. It has had an element of money and political power to it.
But we should not mistake the distinctiveness of the current moment. Patriots like Sudha Bharadwaj or thinkers like Anand Teltumbde are being denied bail.
While patriots like Sadhvi Pragya were locked up on absurd charges.
Umar Khalid was given a minor relief in being allowed to step outside his cell but the fate of so many young student anti-CAA protestors remains uncertain. An 80-year-old social activist who is suffering from Parkinson’s was denied a straw, and the court will do a hearing in its own time. One can’t think of a more visible manifestation of sheer cruelty. Hundreds of Kashmiris were detained without habeas corpus redress.
So, PBM is aggrieved that people he likes, like Umar Khalid, are suffering to some small extent that which people from a religion he disapproves of (PBM's background is Jain) previously suffered under Sonia's regime.
All of these are not isolated instances of justice slipping because of the usual institutional inefficiencies.
True. There is a pattern here. The question is whether anti-national elements get to run amok or whether they will be locked up in accordance with the law.
These are directly a product of a politics that sees protest, dissent, and freedom of expression all through the prism of potential enemies of the state.
By reason of being enemies of the territorial integrity of the Nation.
They are not equal citizens before the law.
Citizenship is irrelevant. The law must treat all those subject to it on an equal basis.
They are treated, without justification in many cases, as subversives, the only construct that democratic barbarism can put on disagreement.
Barbarians have disagreements all the time. Sometimes this leads to a fight. But barbarians don't say 'OMG. That guy is a subversive.' Why? They don't know what the word 'subversive' means.
This construct is now directly aided by judicial power. And, it has to be said, the same phenomenon can be replicated at the level of states in service of a different political dispensation.
India had strong sedition laws long before there was Democracy. It continued to have them after Independence - which is why Democracy survived. PBM is unhappy that Umar Khalid, not Sadhvi Pragya, is in jail. But Indians don't believe Pragya is subversive. Khalid might be- which is why his good buddy Kanhaiya Kumar has deserted him.
What starts as a selectivity on civil liberties will slowly creep into the ideological foundations of the state.
Nonsense! The ideological foundations of a state must precede its notion of 'civil liberties'. It can't be the case that the selective application of the law alters ideology because the latter is a priori by nature.
As state after state is now contemplating legislation on “love jihad”, a communally insidious and infantilising construct, watch how the judiciary abets in legitimising this newest assault on liberty.
Legislation itself legitimizes a legal procedure which the Judiciary is obliged to uphold. This paranoid cretin thinks that Judges legitimize the law by enforcing it. Fuck is wrong with the cunt?
We have gone past the stage where the highest court’s infirmities can be captured in the policy wonk-ish language of institutional reform.
PBM has got to the stage where he is shitting himself incessantly while running around like a headless chicken.
What is happening is more like giving judicial form to the language of democratic barbarism.
No. What is happening is that PBM is showing that his expensive education was wholly useless. The man is as stupid as shit.
The Supreme Court was right to grant Arnab Goswami bail.
In which case the Bombay High Court was wrong to reject his bail plea.
It has finally issued a notice to the UP government over its arrest of journalists.
That is no big deal. The question is how will the Bench deal with the State Government's response.
But Justice SA Bobde’s reported intervention, that the Supreme Court was trying to discourage the use of Article 32, unwittingly let the cat out of the bag.
No it didn't. It is fucking obvious that not everybody in every case can run to the Supreme Court so as to defeat prosecution in a lower court.
Article 32 is one of the glories of the Indian Constitution that protects fundamental rights.
It is a worthless glory.
It can be suspended only in a state of emergency. In some ways, discouraging the use of this article is a perfect metaphor for our times: We don’t want to formally declare a state of emergency but we might as well act as if there is one, as and when the need arises. Discourage, rather than suspend, the use of Article 32.
PBM's shitting himself incessantly and babbling paranoid nonsense is a perfect metaphor for the worthlessness of the shite he was taught and which he taught in turn. 'Political Science' is a barbarism of the intellect which quickly turns
The fight against this is not going to be easy. The democratic barbarism, where every issue is now thought of through the prism of partisan combat, not public reason, has now infected assessment of the judiciary partly as a result of its own inability to project that it is above the fray.
PBM is describing himself. His ignorance of the Law and his inability to reason have forced him down the path of a puerile type of paranoia.
So much of the public discussion is about my favourite judicial victim versus yours that it is going to be hard to get a consensus on the rule of law.
Nonsense! This is something smart people who know the law can easily get to a consensus about.
Ironically, the tradition of legal activism that is heavily invested in making the judiciary the arbiter of everything legitimises judicial intoxication. The trend still continues.
Legal activism, like Judicial activism, was no substitute for proper mechanism design by the Executive. Still, a few people got some money and fame out of it.
We may have our own views on the Central Vista project, for instance, but this is not the sort of issue the courts need to weigh in on.
We have our own views on PBM. I hope the Courts won't weigh in on our expressing those views by shitting on his head.
In seeking our minor policy victories from the court, we in some senses end up legitimising its major infractions on constitutional principles.
No we don't. The two things are wholly unconnected.
Third, there is a culture in the Bar.
Fuck off! There is stupidity, ignorance and philistinism in the Indian Bar. That is why it is shit. Indian Companies pay a lot of money to get out from under Indian jurisdiction.
There are a few voices like Dushyant Dave,
a good thing surely. The fucker sounds like hasn't quite gotten through puberty
Gautam Bhatia,
who has an impressive track-record of being wrong about the Law
Sriram Panchu,
who is not a cretin, but is wildly partisan
willing to call out the rot for what it is; but this has still not translated into a serious professional pushback.
as opposed to frivolous amateurs talking PBM type paranoid bollocks.
The complex of senior lawyers and judges still willing to defer to lese majesty of the courts, and comfortable with judicial barbarism, is still way too high.
In the opinion of a cretin.
This may seem like a little graceless exaggeration, but when you see creeping hues of a Weimar judiciary, grace is no option for ordinary citizens.
The SDP- i.e. libtards like PBM- decided that the 'judiciary is a relic of the authoritarian state and a foreign body' at the beginning of the Twenties. Not unnaturally, by the mid-Twenties, the Judiciary was using its power of review against the Left. In India, it is likely that the Bench will go back to the English model- i.e. retreat from 'political questions'. That is a good thing. The law does not matter very much in a very poor country. Mechanism design to permit more rapid economic growth is the first stage to putting the Law- which is merely a service industry- on a proper footing with respect to the ordinary citizen. Everything else is mere hysteria or histrionics. PBM, it must be acknowledged, is not an ordinary citizen. He is an extraordinarily incontinent cretin. Shit on his head if you get the chance, but don't listen to that shithead save to mock him and the shite subject he teaches.
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