CPLJ Centre on Public Law & Jurisprudence

CENTRE ON PUBLIC LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE

Mission

THE CENTRE ON PUBLIC LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE (CPLJ) at JINDAL GLOBAL LAW
SCHOOL (JGLS) approaches the disciplines of public law and interdisciplinary
jurisprudence as windows onto larger questions of culture and society. Since a truly
Global Law School must traverse the hemispheres of thought and not only those drawn
on maps, the CPLJ has been established at the newly-built OP JINDAL GLOBAL
UNIVERSITY (JGU) in the National Capital Region of India as a resource and destination
for world-renowned scholars and public intellectuals. JGU and JGLS are non-profit
initiatives without precedent in Asian higher education. Established through a unique
philanthropic vision, they are world-class research institutions in service to the public
interest. The CPLJ will fulfill its public mission while promoting collaboration for the
development of a multi-disciplinary JGU in the coming years.

Faculty and Staff

Assistant Director
Vivek (Vik) Kanwar
B.A. Hons. (New College), J.D. (Northeastern), LL.M. (New York University)
Prof. Kanwar’s published and ongoing writings concern “the legal sources of lethal
force” and resources for regulating coercion in public and private law. His expertise
encompasses public law aspects of International, national, and local law,
international humanitarian law and national security law. His writings also draw
insights from contemporary philosophy, intellectual history, social theory and the
humanities. With the CPLJ, he is pursuing the concept of public law through detailed
case studies involving legal pluralism and normative-coercive systems. Ongoing
projects include work on the concepts of “necessity” and "salus populi" in various
legal systems.

Assistant Director
Abhayraj Naik
B.A.LL.B. Hons. (NLSIU Bangalore), LL.M. (Yale)

Prof. Naik’s research interests include legal theory, law and society, philosophy of
law, law and language, and the fundamentals of tort and contract law. His current
research projects focus on interdisciplinary studies of privacy and forgiveness. He is
also interested in traditional Asian systems of thought and jurisprudential and
ethical issues involving science and technology.

Background

• To solve urgent problems and meditate on long-term solutions for

controversies that have arisen within both contemporary jurisprudence and
the practice of public law
• To publish scholarly works, contributing to knowledge of selected areas: (1)
the Structural Crisis of Indian Courts, (2) Legal Pluralism and Informal Dispute
Resolution, and (3) the Boundaries of Public Law.
• To lend interdisciplinary expertise to urgent problems of democracy and rule
of law.
• To recover lost strands of legal theory and formulate novel points of entry
into jurisprudential issues.

Uniqueness

The CPLJ brings together, for the first time in India, legal scholars who take theory
seriously as an endeavor that touches on everyday experience. The Centre’s
researchers are supported by an International Advisory Board composed of the
most distinguished and innovative scholars in public law and jurisprudence, and
aided by motivated graduate students and research associates committed to gain
mastery over specific fields of inquiry. By engaging with broad knowledge
communities (economists, anthropologists, scientists, journalists, cultural theorists,
community leaders, administrative bodies, ethicists, judges, and theologians,
among others) the CPLJ is committed to bring interdisciplinary discussions on public
law and jurisprudence into the mainstream of popular discourse and public policy.

Agenda

In its first two years, the Centre will focus upon three inter-related
problems of public law in India: (1) the Structural Crisis of Delayed
Justice, (2A) Legal Pluralism and Informal Dispute Resolution and (3)
The Boundaries of Public Law. These Research Areas combine
concrete engagement and normative reflection on concepts of
public law:

Area 1: The Normative Dimension of India’s Crisis of Delayed Justice

The most salient problem for the administration of Justice in India is the
delay and backlog in criminal and civil cases at every level from lower courts
to the Supreme Court. This problem has been the subject of numerous
reform efforts and proposals including increasing judicial strength (though
e.g., centralism, increased numbers or improved technology) changes in
procedure (e.g., plea bargaining), and experiments in informal justice
(alternative dispute resolution, the Lok Adalat movement, village arbitration).
What has received almost no attention within India or outside is the crucial
normative dimension, a framework for understanding the duties of public
entities that should guide any range of options. Should legitimacy be
assessed against the ends (substantive outcomes)? Should the expectation
that litigants are provided “adequate and timely relief” be understood as a
subjective right or a duty of public entities? How do the obligations of the
State guide the assessment of solutions? How should apex courts and
legislatures conceive of or ensure their legitimacy as ultimate arbiters of
even those options that fall outside of the public law framework? What
guidance has the Supreme Court given to date on the issue? The CPLJ will
convene lectures, workshops, and working groups to evolve a common
framework to assess the systemic crisis as well as legal and policy
alternatives that have been attempted or may be formulated.
Area 2: Legal Pluralism and Informal Justice

A concern that partially overlaps the research area above is the proliferation
and fragmentation of dispute-resolution across a range of formal and
informal alternatives. One project within this second Area is a focus on
choices between increasing centralism (evolution, hierarchy and
coordination) or increasing pluralism (devolution and localism). The
Supreme Court has recently warded off suggestions by Parliament that it
should divide into multiple separate benches and panels. Is this a victory for
the integrity of the Court’s jurisprudence, or an invitation to fragmentation
along other lines? Is computerization, linking subordinate and higher courts a
substantive achievement or a superficial one? The CPLJ will research and
publish findings in this Area, and also convene lectures, workshops, and
working groups.

In a larger societal context, legal pluralism also raises questions about the
sources of normative legitimacy of formal and informal justice. The CPLJ will
apply broader, interdisciplinary expertise on questions of justice, violence,
accountability, and coercion by focusing a section of its research on varieties
of informal justice (e.g., non-state, traditional, customary, religious, political,
and ad hoc systems). Against the backdrop of development organizations
funneling aid to informal justice systems, it becomes urgent to understand
the promises and perils of various systems. Examples include the
relationship between traditional Khap Panchayats in Haryana and “honour
killings” carried out under their fatwas, or the formation of vigilante groups
opposing sexual violence. Are these systems more relevant and accessible
for poor people than state institutions, therefore enjoying empirical
legitimacy? Or do they reinforce local power inequities, patterns of social
exclusion and human rights violations, therefore violating normative
legitimacy? It is therefore important that we gather research and formulate
views on the relationships between informal justice and public power. The
CPLJ will convene meetings and publish findings of social scientists, theorists,
and legal practitioners who have studied dimensions of state coercion and
informal justice, communal violence, gender, ethnicity, and experiments in
accountability.

Area 3: The Boundaries of Public Law:

Finally, beyond the formal definition of public law we encounter issues that
are nonetheless crucial as counter-points, outsides, and opposites: privacy,
politics, ethics, violence, and passion. What role do these play as constitutive
or excluded elements? What space is created for non-public and extra-legal
values such as vengeance and forgiveness within the space of public law?
What cannot or should not be articulated within the spaces called “public”
and “law”? Can public law accommodate non-Western notions of justice such
as nyaya and dharma? How does public law cope with political imperatives;
does public law disintegrate in spaces of international or inter-public
relations; are the contours of states of exception and emergency defined by
public law, or do they blot out any meaningful concept of public law? These
questions will help frame a larger research area in interdisciplinary
jurisprudence.