Lawyers and the right to strike

Highlights

The divide is obvious and has been simmering for a while. Away from the politics of bifurcation or as a corollary to the same legal issues and very...

The divide is obvious and has been simmering for a while. Away from the politics of bifurcation or as a corollary to the same legal issues and very fundamental ones at that are raised. It has been a while now that a theory has been making the rounds that strikes are illegal. “You are not a trade union” is stated in an abusive tone as if a ‘trade union’ is a demeaning part of our industrial culture.

Courts have taken the view that convenience is far more important that rights of protest and have often erred in favour of the persons who move the courts questioning ‘illegal strikes’. To begin with , we rarely have ‘legal strikes’. The Mahatma had introduced this form of resistance against the government. We need to understand its basic grammar. Wikipedia would define hartal as mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience. In addition to being a general strike, it involves the voluntary closing of schools and places of business. It is a mode of appealing to the sympathies of a government to change an unpopular or unacceptable decision.

This definition has obviously evolved (or retarded ) as people would see it. The civil disobedience is often not civil ( a larger national calamity than a specific malady). Also we are all so immersed in our mundane routines that even a huge hike in our energy resource costs does not bring us to an agreed platform of protest. To quote Wordsworth;

‘’The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers’’.

Are we steadily giving up our democratic credentials? Is constitutionalism being used to being anti democratic? Are institutions failing to be the zealous guardians of the basic structure? Is convenience getting the better of judgment? Is chaos not a hidden price in the structure of democracy in contrast to regimented discipline? Where is ‘hartal’ in the Marx Mahatma perspective?

Talking with reference to the recent happenings in the High Court former Advocate General and Samaikya Andhra ideologue CV Mohan Reddy pointed out that the right to strike is part of our democracy and too fundamental a question to revisit.

“ Every one has a right to protest in a democracy and the right is subject only to the provisions carved out as exceptions in the constitution. Lawyers are no exception.” Rejecting the theory that lawyers should not protest he says: Lawyers have always been in the forefront of people’s causes and unjust political decisions. Where is the exception? Why now? With reference to a ruling of the court banning protests in a specified zone he said that the judgment was a reaction to the violent protests of the time. “There was no such ruling for half a century.

It came recently when it became necessary” Mohan Reddy reasons. On the administrative side, the judiciary can do little in the face of the said judgment he says and agrees that the view is a contextual necessity. Asked if the schism is leaving a scar, he denies it. “We are still friends. It is just some vested interests and groups of non regular practitioners deployed for the purpose who create the scene” he believes.

Yet another persona who has a ringside view of happenings as one leading the protest and also a former Additional Advocate General D Prakash Reddy would also agree on the right to strike. “As lawyers we do not cease to be human beings and citizens. In fact historically we have been a more sensitive class and therefore the right to protest is not denied and in fact is ingrained” he says. As professionals dealing with justice on a day-to-day basis we need to react to political issues and we cannot be cordoned off from societal issues by virtue of our profession, he says. He laments however that the effect of civil disobedience has lost its sheen because we have become regular law- breakers, so choosing a day for breaking the law “ civil disobedience’ does not make sense any longer.

Referring to the division bench judgment, he too believes that there is no choice but to implement it since it is the law. “ While there is a need to revisit its premise, there is no argument against its need for implementation,” he says. “The right to protest is not suspect ”, he says dealing with the recent protest by Samaikya Andhra lawyers , “the timing is”. “It is rightly perceived by many as confrontation rather than agitation. It appears to be an attempt to foil a protest of a few decades and an attempt to grab the fruits of hard earned labour” .The debate will go on. The question is will it be a debate or a slugfest.

Print Article

Just In

Lawyers and the right to strike

The divide is obvious and has been simmering for a while. Away from the politics of bifurcation or as a corollary to the same legal issues and very...

News

Company

Entertainment

All News