[Reader-list] Invite to a workshop on the Judicial 90's

[Aarti Mundkur]

Dear All,
Apologies. The invite and the schedule are below
Warm Regards
Aarti

The Alternative Law Forum and Christ College of Law, Bangalore
Invite you to a Workshop on

*The Judicial Nineties*
May 10th & 11th, 2008 at the Christ College of Law, Christ College 
Campus, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560029

There has been a sense that the judiciary has increasingly narrowed the 
field on issues of socio economic rights and distributive justice. 
Often, this is referred to as the Court's 'conservative turn', but there 
is little that is said beyond this, except to imply its direct linkage 
to the post-liberalization period in Indian history. One of the 
important tasks of the contemporary is to provide an account of this 
shift within a larger political economy narrative that seeks to locate 
the precise manners in which these changes are taking place via the 
emergence of a judicial sovereignty that does not merely adjudicate any 
longer but actively produces the context and conditions for a 
free-market friendly environment. Ranging from questions of 
rehabilitation to the violent reordering of urban space, the judiciary 
has played an active role in redefining ideas of access and entitlement. 
While the eighties were marked by the emergence of ‘social action 
litigation’ that sought to radically redefine ideas of entitlement and 
equality, by the mid-nineties, most social movements who relied on using 
the courts as spaces of social justice were repeatedly disappointed by 
the complicity of the courts with the neo liberal project.

All the extremely violent developments and transitions that are taking 
place in this period are unfolding very much within the law, backed by 
new regimes of property, and often in the name of the law. Thus the 
violent reordering of cities in India has seen encroachers removed to 
restore the land to the legal owners, and water privatized after lawful 
agreements are entered into between the government and private parties. 
The Court has proactively determined socio-economic policy and in doing 
so has re-written the idea of the social.

In older formulations like Partha Chatterjee’s idea of the political 
there was an acknowledgement of the porous spaces between the 
legal/illegal that allowed people to participate in democratic politics. 
This is effectively being destroyed by the judiciary and along with it 
the compact of political society. There is a newfound romance of the 
idea of the legal and with it, new forms of illegality and 
subjectivities that are being produced by the Court. In this space there 
is very little room for the kind of negotiations that characterized the 
ways in which large sections of the population accessed basic services.

Perhaps talking of the complicity of the courts with the neo liberal 
project is too generous a reading, and instead we should say that the 
law and judiciary are the neo liberal project. If this is so then is 
there a need to re-evaluate the relationship between social movements 
and the judicial process – do we now abandon the site of legal intervention?
Registration: If you are interested in attending the Workshop, please 
send an email to Aarti Mundkur at aarti at altlawforum.org or call her at 
080-22356845

Schedule

May 10, 2008
Welcome: John Thaliath, Christ College of Law 9:30 am – 9:40 am
Introduction: Mayur Suresh, Alternative Law Forum 9:40 am – 10:00 am
Keynote: Upendra Baxi 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Tea Break (11:00 am – 11:15 am)

Supreme, But not Infallible 11:15 am – 1:30 pm
Speakers: Aditya Nigam, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Sitaramam Kakarala, Usha 
Ramanathan

Lunch (1:30 pm - 2:30 pm)

Judicial Imagination and the City Beautiful 2:30 pm - 4:30pm
Speakers: Nivedita Menon, Awadhendhra Sharan, Shrimoyee Ghosh

Tea Break (4:30 – 4:45 pm)

Law of Terror and Terror of Law 4:45 pm – 6:45 pm
Speakers: Nitya Ramakrishnan, Ujjwal Kumar Singh, D. Nagasaila

May 11, 2008
Keynote A.G. Noorani 9:30 am – 10:30 am

Tea Break (10:45 – 11:00)

Law and Labour in the Time of Global Capital 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Speakers: Mukul Sinha, NGR Prasad, Mihir Desai

Lunch (1:00 pm - 2:00 pm)

Contestations & Power: The Court and Social Justice 2:00 pm - 4:30pm
Speakers: Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Arun Thiruvengadam, K. Balagopal

Tea Break (4:30 pm – 4:45 pm)

Concluding Discussion: Initiated by Prof. Upendra Baxi 4:45 pm – 5:30pm

Film Screening: The Advocate, by Deepa Dhanraj 5:45 pm – 7:45 pm

Dinner at Venue 8:00 pm