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Showing contexts for: Constitutional conventions in B.R. Kapoor vs State Of Tamil Nadu And Anr on 21 September, 2001Matching Fragments
831), The head of the State should avoid getting involved in politics, was pressed into service. I am unable to persuade myself to agree with the aforesaid submission of Mr. Rao, inasmuch as, in my considered opinion, the people of this country as well as their voice reflected through their elected representatives in the Legislative Assembly, electing a disqualified person for being chosen as a member of the Legislative Assembly, to be their leader are as much subservient to the Constitution of India as the Governor himself. In a democracy, constitutional law reflects the value that people attach to orderly human relations, to individual freedom under the law and to institutions such as Parliament, political parties, free elections and a free press. Constitution is a document having a special legal sanctity which sets out the frame-work and the principal functions of the organs of government within the State and declares the principles by which those organs must operate. Constitution refers to the whole system of the governance of a country and the collection of rules which establish and regulate or govern the government. In our country, we have a written constitution, which has been given by the people of India to themselves. The said Constitution occupies the primary place. Notwithstanding the fact, we have a written Constitution, in course of time, a wide variety of rules and practices have evolved which adjust operation of the Constitution to changing conditions. No written constitution would contain all the detailed rules upon which the government depends. The rules for electing the legislature are usually found not in the written Constitution but in the statutes enacted by the legislature within limits laid down by the Constitution. A Constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government or a good governance is a creature of the Constitution. A documentary Constitution reflects the beliefs and political aspirations of those who had framed it. One of the principle of constitutionalism is what it had developed in the democratic traditions. A primary function that is assigned to the written Constitution is that of controlling the organs of the Government. Constitutional law pre-supposes the existence of a State and includes those laws which regulate the structure and function of the principal organs of government and their relationship to each other and to the citizens. Where there is a written Constitution, emphasis is placed on the rules which it contains and on the way in which they have been interpreted by the highest court with constitutional jurisdiction. Where there is a written Constitution the legal structure of Government may assume a wide variety of forms. Within a federal constitution, the tasks of government are divided into two classes, those entrusted to the federal organs of government, and those entrusted to the various states, regions or provinces which make up the federation. But the constitutional limits bind both the federal and state organs of government, which limits are enforceable as a matter of law. Many important rules of constitutional behaviour, which are observed by the Prime Minister and Ministers, Members of the Legislature, Judges and Civil servants are contained neither in Acts nor in judicial decisions. But such rules have been nomenclatured by the Constitutional Writers to be the rule of the positive morality of the constitution and some times the authors provide the name to be the unwirtten maxims of the constitution. Rules of constitutional behaviour, which are considered to be binding by and upon those who operate the Constitution but which are not enforced by the law courts nor by the presiding officers in the House of Parliament. Sir Ivor Jennings, in his book, Law and the Constitution had stated that constitutional conventions are observed because of the political difficulties which arise if they are not. These rules regulate the conduct of those holding public office and yet possibly the most acute political difficulty can arise for such a person is to be forced out of office. The Supreme Court of Canada stated that the main purpose of conventions is to ensure that legal frame work of the constitution is operated in accordance with the prevailing constitutional values of the period. (see (1982) 125 DLR(3d) 1, 84). But where the country has a written constitution which ranks as fundamental law, legislative or executive acts which conflicts with the constitution must be held to be unconstitutional and thus illegal. The primary system of Government cannot be explained solely in terms of legal and conventional rules. It depends essentially upon the political base which underlies it, in particular on the party system around which political life is organised. Given the present political parties and the electoral system, it is accepted that following a general election, the party with a majority of seats in the State legislature or the Parliament will form the Government. This is what the Constitution postulates and permits. But in the matter of formation of Government if the said majority political party elects a person as their leader, whom the Constitution and the laws of the country disqualifies for being chosen as a member of the Legislative Assembly, then such an action of the majority elected member would be a betrayal to the electorates and to the Constitution to which they owe their existence. In such a case, the so called will of the people must be held to be unconstitutional and, as such, could not be and would not be tolerated upon. When one speaks of legislative supermacy and the will of the people, the doctrine essentially consists of a rule which governs the legal relationship between the legislature and the court, but what is stated to be the legislative supermacy in the United Kingdom has no application in our country with a written Constitution limiting the extent of such supermacy of the Legislature or Parliament. In other words, the people of the country, the organs of the Government, legislature, executive and judiciary are all bound by the Constitution which Hon. Justice Bhagwati, J. describes in Minerva Mills case (1980 (3) Supreme Court Cases, 625) to be suprema lex or the paramount law of the land and nobody is above or beyond the Constitution. When Court has been ascribed the duty of interpreting the Constitution and when Court finds that manifestly there is an unauthorised exercise of power under the Constitution, it would be the solemn duty of the Court to intervene. The doctrine of legislative supermacy distinguishes the United Kingdom from those countries in which they have a written constitution, like India, which imposes limits upon the legislature and entrust the ordinary courts or a constitutional court with the function of deciding whether the acts of the legislature are in accordance with the Constitution. This being the position, the action of the majority of the elected members of a political party in choosing their leader to head the Government, if found to be contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the land then the Constitution and the laws must prevail over such unconstitutional decision, and the argument of Mr. Rao, that the will of the people would prevail must give way. In a democratic society there are important reasons for obeying the law, which do not exist in other forms of government. Our political system still is not perfect and there are always the scope for many legislative reforms to be made. But the maintenance of life in modern society requires a willingness from most citizens for most of the time to observe laws, even when individually they may not agree with them.