Imagine having to keep explaining that something you are entitled to is being withheld, while the rest of your life carries on demanding your attention. There is work to do, someone to look after, a bill that will not wait for the argument to be settled. How much of a life should a person have to spend insisting that their rights apply to them?
News On AIR reports that Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said courts must intervene when constitutional rights are violated. The supplied report gives no further context for the remarks, so it would be unwise to attach them to a particular dispute. The proposition itself, though, deserves attention beyond the courtroom.
A right becomes precarious if its practical value depends on the holder’s ability to keep fighting for it. Persistence is admirable. It is also a peculiar qualification to require of someone seeking what is already theirs.
There is an understandable temptation to celebrate the person who refuses to give up. We like that story. It offers courage, a recognisable struggle, perhaps a satisfying conclusion. Yet admiration can distract us from the arrangements that made such endurance necessary. Someone less articulate, less well supported or simply exhausted should not become less entitled.
Of course, a claim that a right has been violated is not proof that it has. Disputes need scrutiny, evidence and a fair hearing for those involved. Courts cannot responsibly dispense with that work. Nor can every disappointment be made into a constitutional injury.
But that necessary caution should not become a comfortable reason to leave people struggling indefinitely.
For ordinary life, the implication is fairly demanding. Whenever we have some authority over another person’s options, at work, in an organisation, in the decisions we administer, we can ask whether our procedures allow a legitimate challenge. Can someone disagree without being treated as a nuisance? Can a mistake be corrected before persistence becomes their second job?
Judicial intervention may be essential. It should not relieve everyone else of examining the obstacles they control. A person should be able to get back to living without first having to become exceptionally good at being heard.