Analytically explain about the term ''law is an instrument of social change''.
Answers
The aim of this article is to put forward the true nature and purpose of the law. The need for this article has arisen because for every minor new situation we start crying for the change in the law. In a country which is facing the problem of “poverty”, “unemployment”, “starvation”, etc, it is not a wise idea to agitate again and again for every minute discomfort by invoking the “legislative machinery’ of the country. The time, money and resources spent on these “unproductive initiatives” should be used for productive purposes only. These “unpredictable changes” only reflect the “priority” of the governing force of India.
Introduction
The law regulates the social interests, arbitrates conflicting claims and demands security of persons and property of the people and is an essential function of the state. It could be achieved through instrumentality of law. Undoubtedly, there is a cross cultural conflict where living law must find answer to the new challenges and the courts are required to mould the sentencing system to meet the challenges. The contagion of lawlessness would undermine social order and lay it in ruins. Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of the law, which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence. Therefore, law as a corner stone of the edifice of “order” should meet the challenges confronting the society. The social impact of the crime, e.g. where it relates to offences against women, dacoity, kidnapping and other offences involving moral turpitude or moral delinquency which have great impact on social order and public interest, cannot be lost sight of and per se require exemplary treatment[1]. The law in order to be legitimate and legal must also satisfy the mandates of the Constitution of India. The Constitution of India is not intended to be the arena of legal quibbling for men with long purses. It is made for the common people. It should generally be so construed as that they can understand and appreciate it. The more they understand it the more they love it and the more they prize it. It is really the poor, starved and mindless millions who need the court’s protection for securing to themselves the enjoyment of Human Rights[2]. The Constitution precedents cannot be permitted to be transformed into weapons for defeating the hopes and aspirations of our teaming millions, half-clad, half-starved, half-educated. These hopes and aspirations representing the will of the people can only become articulate through the voice of their elected representatives. If they fail the people, the nation must face the death and destruction[3]. Then, neither the court nor the Constitution will save the country[4]. The Constitution, unlike other Acts, is intended to provide an enduring paramount law and a basic design of the structure and power of the State and rights and duties of the citizens to serve the society through a long lapse of ages. It is not only designed to meet the needs of the day when it is enacted but also the needs of the altering conditions of the future. It contains a framework of mechanism for resolution of constitutional disputes. It also embeds its ideals of establishing an egalitarian social order to accord socio-economic and political justice to all sections of the society assuring dignity of person and to integrate a united social order assuring every citizen fundamental rights assured in part III and the directives in part IV of the Constitution. In the interpretation of the Constitution, words of width are both a framework of concepts and means to achieve the goals in the preamble. Concepts may keep changing to expand and elongate the rights. Constitutional issues are not solved by mere appeal to the meaning of the words without an acceptance of the line of their growth. The intention of the Constitution is, rather, to outline principles than to engrave details. Thus, law should sub serve social purpose. Judge must be a jurist endowed with the legislator's wisdom, historian's search for truth, prophet’s vision, and capacity to respond to the needs of the present, resilience to cope with the demands of the future and to decide objectively disengaging himself/herself from every personal influence or predilections. Therefore, the judges should adopt purposive interpretation of the dynamic concepts of the Constitution and the Act with its interpretative armoury to articulate the felt necessities of the time. The judge must also bear in mind that social legislation is not a document for fastidious dialects but a means of ordering the life of the people. To construe law one must enter into its spirit, its setting and history. Law should be capable of expanding freedoms of the people and the legal order can, weighed with utmost equal care, be made to provide the underpinning of the highly inequitable social order[5]. In this background we will discuss the “need” of amending the Information Technology Act, 2000