1139 | Comparative constitutional law

Comparative Constitutional Law is a elective course open to all students enrolled in the B.A. LL.B (Hons.) and LL.M programmes at NLSIU who have completed their basic courses in Indian constitutional law.

This course aims to provide an in-depth exploration of comparative methods in general, and the use of such methods in the study of constitutional law in particular. While using legal materials from other jurisdictions is common, both in legal studies and in the drafting and interpretation of our laws, we seldom query why and whether we should compare, what we should compare, and how we should go about engaging in the comparison. These questions, applied to the domain of constitutional law, form the crux of this course. Central to this inquiry is also an acknowledgment of our location as a post-colony situated in the Global South, and we will repeatedly query whether this location should shape, and how, our evaluation of comparative methods. The ultimate aim of the course is to gain a better understanding of comparative methods in law, as well as insights into Indian constitutional law, through a comparative inquiry.

The course will proceed through a reading of scholarship on comparative methods in legal studies generally, and the application of such methods to the study of constitutional law. This is a reading intensive course. A detailed and extensive reading list has been supplied along with this outline. Do not feel intimidated by the size of the readings! The expectation is that students will ‘skim-read’ the texts to understand (a) what are the core issues being addressed in the paper? (b) how does the author respond to these issues? (c) what is the (implicit or explicit) method employed by the author in raising and responding to these issues (d) how do these issues relate to Indian constitutional law, practice and politics.