Abstract

The phenomenon of Public Interest Litigation [PIL] is a judicially crafted one and primarily consists of the constitutional court’s expansion of fundamental rights on the one hand, and procedural innovations to create better opportunities for disadvantaged groups to gain access to the legal system on the other. It has created a renewed conception of justice, and has enabled the court to augment and validate its own authority as the “guardian” of the public welfare, and as the constitutionally appointed branch of the state to enforce the rights of the “public”. PIL at one level appears to have enabled the justice system and laws to define and shape social and political interactions and to channelize democratic pressures for gaining a response from the state. But it has also been a process by which law and justice emerge from social and political interaction. This new interaction between the realm of judicial decision making and state governance has created adjustments and adaptations and the creation of new legal acts, as well as systemic tensions and conflicts. The paper concludes by looking at broader questions that PIL generates for processes of civic participation, representative democracy and democratic polity under the constitution.