ROLE OF CONTEXTUALISM IN CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION: THE EXPANDING CIRCLES FROM AK GOPALAN TO IN RE ARTICLE 370.

Abstract

Reading the text with context integrates the Constitution into the social process and people’s expectations. Such a reading has several layers or expanding circles. It is a realistic and comprehensive approach. It brings to the process of constitutional interpretation, the arguments based on history, the intention of constitution makers, purpose, philosophy and competence for desirable social transformation. It draws support from the language of the provision under interpretation, the implications of other relevant provisions of the Constitution, and socio-economic, political and cultural factors. Comparative study of the US, Canadian and Australian experiences have established the contribution of contextualism towards expanding the scope of civil liberties, strengthening federalism and making democracy vibrant. Although the Indian Supreme Court had initially hesitated to tap all the dimensions of contextualism, and sometimes acted in response to political context as in Gopalan or ADM Jabalpur cases, the major thrust of the judicial approach has been profitably applying contextualism in constitutional interpretation. Contextualism was a major plank of judicial reasoning in Re Article 370, which helped in constitutionally integrating Jammu and Kashmir to internalise the constitutional values. The great advantage of contextualism is its flexibility and combination of methods of interpretation. However, unless the core constitutional values and objectives are centre staged in its application, the waves of political context would drift away from the constitutional jurisprudence into the wrong path. Anchoring contextualism to the basic philosophy and goal of the Constitution makes it a dependable and useful tool.