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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Justice

The Preamble promises justice to all citizens. Justice means harmonization of interests between the individuals, between groups and between the individuals and groups on the one hand and interests of the community on the other. Most significantly, the Preamble places Justice higher than the other Principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The concept of Justice in the Preamble is indeed very wide. It is not confined to the narrow legal justice as administered by the courts. Our courts are, after all, only courts of law. Justice is defined or elaborated as social, economic and political, again giving precedence to social and economic over political justice.

The Preamble is designed to realise socio-economic justice to all people including workmen. (All India Statutory Corporation v. United Labour Union, AIR 1997 SC 645).

Social justice implies that all citizens are treated equally irrespective of their status in society as a result of the incident of birth, race, caste, religion, sex, title etc. Article 15 prohibits discrimination or disability in the matter of access to public places. Article 38 enjoins the State to strive to promote the welfare of the people "by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of the national life." In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: "Social Justice has always exercised an appeal to sensitive persons. The basic attraction of Marxism for millions of people was not, I think, its attempt at scientific theory but its passion social justice.

Provisions for human conditions of work, maternity relief, leisure, reduction of wide disparities, promoting of economic interests and a decent standard of living for the workers, weaker sections and backward classed, minimum wage, banning of forced labour (articles 23 and 43) were all directed towards social justice. (Sadhuram v. Polin, AIR 1984 SC 1471, State of Maharashtra ,AIR 1984 SC 1471; Lingappa v. State of Maharashtra, A IR 1985 SC 389)

Economic Justice would require that the rich and the poor are treated alike and that efforts are made to bridge the gap between them. In pursuance of the objective of economic justice, article 39 directs the State to try to secure that the citizens have an adequate means of livelihood, that ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good, that operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment, that there is equal, that there is equal pay for equal work for both men and women, that women and children are not abused and citizens are not forced by economic necessity into vocations unsuited to their age or strength, and the children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in freedom and dignity and children and youth are protected against exploitation etc.

In fact, various other Articles in Part IV of the Constitution (Articles 36 to 51) are also directed towards securing a new social and economic order imbued with justice. Thus, there are provisions for right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases, for just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief, for living wage etc. for workers, for free and compulsory education of children, for promotion of educational and economic interests of weaker sections, for separation of judiciary from executive etc.

 

Political justices means equal share to all citizens in the rights to participation in the political process without any distinction of race, caste, creed, religion or place of birth. Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment and Articles 325 and 326 provide for equal rights to all adults to participate in elections.

Founding fathers like Nehru and Ambedkar were quite clear in their minds that political justice was meaningless without economic justice. In our society ridden with religious, caste and creed discriminations, even economic justice was not enough unless it was coupled with social justice. Dr. Ambedkar had said:

"On 26th January, 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value."

Extract from Our Constitution by S C kashyap

   
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