A 6000 day wait on justice: The Uphaar tragedy commiserations

Krishnamurthy

A mother always remembers, Neelam Krishnamurthy had said two years – 730 days – ago. She had been talking about the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire in which her teenage daughter and her son died. It’s been 18 years since that fateful day but she still counts the days like an imprisoned person. “6570 days.” 

Krishnamurthy is one of many awaiting closure while Supreme Court deliberates the sentence to be given out to the real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal – the owners of Uphaar who were convicted for willful negligence causing death on March 5 last year. 

Another evidence tampering case against the Ansal brothers is pending before the Patiala House Courts Complex Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanangal. The 56-year-old Krishnamurthy has never missed a single hearing in the case that’s stretched on for nine years.

“You would be my daughter’s age,” she can be heard telling the younger reporters who perchance upon her in the district courts.

Meanwhile SC continues to deliberate on the question of quantum of punishment to be given to the Ansal Brothers. It was sent to a larger Bench for determination last year.

The fire in Uphaar cinema located in South Delhi broke out during the screening of the movie Border. Fifty-nine corpses were recovered. Corners’ reports show that they suffocated to their deaths. During investigation it was revealed that the Ansals’ building did not comply with fire safety standards. One of the Fire Exits was blocked by extra seats, so the trapped victims could not get out of the burning hall.

“Members of the Association hope that the larger Bench would consider the enormity of the tragedy before deciding on the quantum of sentence. It is very evident from the findings of the Supreme Court that 59 invaluable lives were snuffed out due to wanton disregard of the statutes with the intention of making extra money rather than ensuring the safety of patrons. We also hope that the decision on the quantum of punishment is such that it would send a strong message to the occupiers and owners of public spaces that they cannot endanger human lives to fill their coffers,” AVUT (Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy) president Krishnamurthy said.

On Saturday June 13, the AVUT will hold held a prayer meeting marking the 18 years which have passed since they lost their loved ones. 

They are demanding the sentence of the Ansal Brothers be decided by SC in an expeditious manner; they want the evidence tampering case in the district court to be finally heard. 

“It’s been “6570 days,” says Krishnamurthy speaking for all the living victims of the tragedy  “Don’t we deserve justice?”

(A shorter, modified, version of this article appeared in an edition of the Hindustan Times June 13, 2015 papers)

The law doesn't blame Madhuri for Maggi... even if you want to!

It was reported on Tuesday that an independent advocate has filed a case against actors Amitabh Bachhan, Madhuri Dixit and Preity Zinta who endorsed the household product we all grew up with — Maggi. 

The ‘two-minute’ noodles have been in the eye of the storm since it was revealed that several batches of their products across India contained dangerous levels of lead, which can be fatal. And now, so are the celebrities whose shining faces on silver screens told the rest of us to “Love Maggi.”

It cannot be questioned that celebrities are people who exert a lot of influence over the general public, and should exercise this power in a responsible, not reckless manner. 

According to the Food Standards and Safety Authority of India (FSSAI) Act, anyone whomsoever is a party to a misleading advertisement or its publication can be fined up to Rs 10 lakh. 

In February, last year, the Central Consumer Protection Council (CCPC), the apex body for consumer protection in India, ruled that actors could be held liable for making “false claims” in advertisements and endorsing a product that they “know to be misleading.”

So, on the face of it, there seems a possibility that Bacchhan senior and the rest of Bollywood’s finest may be in a hot soup. But the CCPC was clear about one thing: these people can only be held accountable for endorsements or statements they made “recklessly” or if they had knowledge that the product was unsafe, or the advertisement claim false or misleading.

It all boils down to what lawyers call mens rea; and what we call intention. Did Amitabh know there was a high-lead percentage in Maggi noodles? Did Zinta? What about Madhuri? Did your local grocer know? Did the canteen-cook who gives you a plate during teatime every day? 

There is no belittling the role of celebrity endorsements in India —they account of half our country’s ads. Also, you don’t even need to be Indian to know the the influence a Bacchan exert on the country’s less educated population — which is, sadly, still in the majority. One can safely say, products can be moved on the basis of Madhuri’s smile alone. 

Yet, the law is clear — to be liable, they must have been reckless or had knowledge of their false claims. As of yet, there is no proof of either criteria applying to any of the stars.

If this were a case of deceptive advertising such as the infamous 2011 Reebook Easy Tone shoes controversy — where the company sold shoes based on claims that they would provide extra tone and strength to leg and buttock muscles — one may be tempted to hold the celebrities involved responsible. This is an easy fact-checkable claim; all the celebrity has to do is use the product for a few months. Voila! truth will reveal itself, the star could be said to have intention to deceive. 

Chillax,  Bipasha isn't going to be found liable either. She endorsed the product in 2009, and the company only started settling claims by 2011. (But, you -- who fell for that misassformation -- may get your money back.)

This is not even similar to the Home Trade scam of 2002 in which Sachin Tendulkar, Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan endorsed a company that created no products and scammed 1000s of crores of investor money. 

This is an issue with a food product, which we’ve all been using years before any of the three stars complained against began endorsing it. It is an issue that was only recently discovered by the Food Safety & Drug Administration in Uttar Pradesh.

There’s no doubt that having lead levels which are seven-times the permissible level in food which is marketed and sold to children is a serious matter. And if Maggi, or the endorsers had knowledge of this danger, they’re liable criminally, ethically, and morally. 

But as the law goes, that knowledge is key; and ignorance — in this case — can be bliss of the Bollywood trio. 

(These views above are my personal opinions, and do not represent - in any manner - the opinion of my employer, or media organisations association with me.)

A "lion" of a Judge: brief profile of Justice Rohinton Nariman

The youngest senior advocate and Supreme Court judge, Justice Rohinton Nariman has always been a trail-blazer. On Tuesday, however, by striking down as unconstitutional the draconian Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000, he cements his place in history.

The 56-year-old SC judge, once described as “wise and humane” by former-advocate-general Darius Khambata, is among only five senior advocates directly elevated to the bench.

His very first judgment said death penalty reviews must be heard in open court by a three-judge-bench. The order confirms what Kambatta says fondly -- the ‘F’ in Rohinton F Nariman stands not just for his father Fali, but also for “fair.”

The judgment went against years of SC practice, which allowed death penalty reviews to be heard by circulation and two judges. But Nariman is no stranger to standing up to authority.

The young man who joined the Bar in 1979 was a “lion of a lawyer.” His strong opinions and general impatience with briefing counsels are as legendary as his fantastic memory and command over jurisprudence.

In 1993, then SC Chief Justice Venkatachalaiah designated as SC senior advocate a 37 –year-old Nariman against the minimum age of 45.  

Since then, the judge – who is also an ordained Zoroastrian priest from Bandra Agiary Bombay – has taken on many initiatives for young and needy lawyers. Apart from donating Rs. 1 Crore for setting up the SC lawyers welfare club, Nariman has also instituted annual scholarships for young lawyers.

BTW: This is just him talking about Beethoven

He is also a scholar of history and western classical music. His famous Nariman-memory (both he and father Fali are renowned for their recall power) can identify a 1000 pieces of Opera music from just their opening notes. He is also an avid daily walker.

Speaking about Tuesday’s milestone judgment, which was authored by Nariman, SC lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan told HT, “It’s a particularly erudite, wide-ranging judgment which reflects the author’s command over literature, religion apart from his obvious liberal credentials​

A shorter version of this article appeared in Hindustan Times March 25, 2015 Delhi edition as "Trail blazer judge lives up to expectations."

Jung and Justice for Juveniles

Jung and Justice for Juveniles

 Our new lieutenant governor believes that the age of majority with regard to criminal actions should be lowered, he told the media this week. “These days, young people grow up much faster,” PTI quoted Mr. Najeeb Jung, who was appointed the Lt. Governor of Delhi a few months ago. Mr. Jung’s responsibilities include overseeing police and education.

Currently, under the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 (JJA), the age of majority is eighteen years, which was part of India’s obligations under the 1992 UN Convention of the Child’s Rights (CRC). This became a sensitive topic when it was found out that one of the men responsible for the Delhi gang-rape case was only months away from turning eighteen. This week he was found guilty and sentenced to the maximum penalty under the JJA, which is three years at a reform center. This decision has been met with protests, and criticism from many politicians and activists. Mr. Jung’s statement comes in the context of these facts.

He’s not alone in this belief. This year, the Supreme Court has dismissed several PILs asking for revision of the JJA. Mr. Subramanian Swamy, a leader of the BJP party, had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court asking for a reinterpretation of the law so it takes into account a person’s mental and intellectual capability, not their age, to determine whether he or she should be tried as an adult. According to its website, the Supreme Court has rejected this prayer but Mr. Swamy indicates that he is getting ready to appeal the decision. If he is successful and such a reinterpretation is recognized, India will be in violation of the CRC.

“People are saying the age limit should be brought down to 16. Even if the age of a juvenile were lowered to 14, there would be nothing wrong with that. There is need to review it,” PTI reports Mr. Jung as saying. The Justice Verma committee, formed last year to look into the issues surrounding violence against women and recommend legal steps to improve the current situation — a decidedly grim one — advised for several legal measures to be taken, but advised strongly against lowering the age of majority. Meanwhile activists and politicians have been unrelenting in their quest to do exactly that.

It is true that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports that juvenile crimes have gone up 40% between 2001 and 2010. In the same period, rapes by juveniles have gone up 50%, murder is up by a third and kidnappings of women and girls nearly five times. These figures are disturbing and seem to support the views of Mr. Swamy and Mr. Jung, but many of those working with juvenile delinquents don’t see it that way.

“The NCRB statistics actually prove that there is something wrong with the way juveniles are growing up in our country,” says Mr. Anand Grover, counsel for the Lawyers Collective and best known for his work in the re-interpretation of section 377 IPC. Mr. Grover works actively with juveniles in his practice.

Sociologists believe that the rise in juvenile crimes is due to a variety of factors that can’t be addressed by simply lowering the age of majority. These factors include the government’s inability to curb increase in poverty; failure of the educational system causing young people to abandon schools; increasing income disparity; domestic factors such as violence at home and failure of parental units.

Mr. Grover explains, “The law, insofar as it is concerned with child criminality, is interested in prevention first. The second thing is to see if reform is possible, then we can look at punishment. This idea that young people are growing up faster is misguided. They may have more information but that doesn’t mean they have the ability to process or understand this information.”

NCRB data also indicates that most juvenile delinquents are from low-income families and/or a marginalized stratum of society. Studies on juveniles including studies conducted by UNICEF also show that neglected children and juveniles are easy prey to criminality. “Look at the profiles of the Mumbai rapists: they’re completely out of social norms —they don’t have jobs, their parents don’t have jobs,” says Mr. Grover, “With our economy cracking up, these kids are in a position where they have no stake in society or even means to develop a stake. How can we apportion blame on children who have nothing to look forward to at all?”

Sociologists and lawyers alike are also in agreement that lowering the age of majority will have little effect on juvenile crime rates, and in fact may have little affect on India’s crime rates on a whole. In general, most juveniles are booked for petty crimes such as theft — the 2012 NCRB data shows that juveniles committed 4% of rapes in India.  “Individual incidences cannot be the reason to call for a change in the law,” says Mr. Grover.

There are also numerous studies that stand against clubbing juveniles with adult and often hardened offenders. Many worry that this approach, along with harsher sentencing and the increasing number of juveniles whose bail is rejected thus causing them to remain in pretrial detention, will backfire and result in increase in juvenile offenders instead.

Recent studies show that a welfare based approach, where the juvenile is brought back into the folds of society through reform, works better to reduce delinquency. Tripti Tandon, also with the Lawyers’ Collective, who works with juveniles says, “A young person’s involvement in crimes can be on account of many factors, and these factors may be turned around through a system of education, reform, support and encouragement. This is the philosophy behind the JJA and I think it continues to hold.” Ms. Tandon adds, “The views of our politicians is extremely hypocritical. On one hand they refuse to entertain lowering the age by which a person may be sexually active — here they say they want to protect the children— but when it comes to something so serious as crime and facing punishment in the criminal justice system, then they want fourteen year olds to be treated as adults. Then they don’t see the implications of making fourteen-year-olds face life imprisonment or capital punishment?”

The courts must be crazy

Since leaving the legal profession, I’ve found myself defending Indian judgments more than ever before. Sometimes it is much needed; legal orders are easily misinterpreted and misquoted by the media, leading an average person to think all judges are crazy. Other times, the average person is spot on- the judgment put forth is as close to crazy as can be. Today, I find myself wishing I could call the latest spate of supposedly women-friendly judgments passed by the Delhi High Court, and most recently the Madras High Court, crazy. I really, really wish I could. Crazy would be better than insidious.

In case you haven’t read, last week the Delhi High Court ruled (albeit in a matter of anticipatory bail) that promising a woman marriage to obtain sex is tantamount to rape- an archaic sentiment that was reasonably overturned by the Supreme Court this year. Today, the Hindu carries news of a Madras High Court order stating that pre-marital sex is all one needs to establish the relationship of marriage. Even if these observations are obiter dicta, some lawyer, some lower court is going to bring this up again, for sure. For a brief moment, let's put aside the legal implications of these judgments - those are mind-numbing, to say the least.

On the face of it one might think that these judgments have been passed to protect a woman but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? In two fell swoops, the court has made its message quite clear: “Women need protection from licentious men, and women only have sex in order to get married to the man.” To follow the thought to its logical conclusion, women are so desperate to get married that they are being easily duped by men into having sex with them on the basis of just a promise. Follow it a bit further; a sexually active woman who doesn’t want or expect marriage is a bad woman, a loose woman, a woman who is asking for it.

Both judgments are examples of a type of sexism: Benevolent sexism; particularly difficult to counter purely because, as the name suggests, it appears to be so affable.

The term was coined in 1996 by Peter Glick and Susan Fiske. In 2012, the University of Florida conducted an in-depth study into the theory, and found that both men and women are equally prone to benevolent sexism. The idea was summed up perfectly by Dr. Kathleen Connelly, PhD the lead author of this study, as the perception that "women are wonderful, but weak" It’s inbuilt into social norms that feminists have long fought against, without much help from (even) other women.

When faced with top level judges enforcing this idea by insisting that women need protection from men who make false promises; by insinuating that sex between two people is anything more than that because it automatically leads to the women assuming there’s a deeper, long-lasting commitment, what are we to think?

Connelly states that “several studies have shown that when women read benevolently sexist comments, for example, they tend to perform more poorly on cognitive tests, express feelings of incompetence and weakness, and even experience greater dissatisfaction with their physical appearance. Not to mention, it might even perpetuate current inequalities—disparities in pay, for instance—that women still experience.”

An excellent example of the hazard of this kind of sexism was given in the Scientific American blog. It’s such a good example that I’m quoting it verbatim below:

“For a very recent example of how benevolent sexism might play out in our everyday lives, take a look at this satirical piece, which jokingly re-writes Albert Einstein’s obituary.

To quote: He made sure he shopped for groceries every night on the way home from work, took the garbage out, and hand washed the antimacassars. But to his step daughters he was just Dad. ”He was always there for us,” said his step daughter and first cousin once removed Margo.

Albert Einstein, who died on Tuesday, had another life at work, where he sometimes slipped away to peck at projects like showing that atoms really exist. His discovery of something called the photoelectric effect won him a coveted Nobel Prize.

Looks weird, right? Kind of like something you would never actually see in print?

Yet the author of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill’s obituary didn’t hesitate before writing the following about her last week: She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.

But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant rocket scientist, who in the early 1970s invented a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits.”

Sometimes, I wish I was making this shit up.

Recently upon joining a new work-place, I was told by someone to reign in my enthusiasm, to be a quieter, more subtle version of myself. “Don’t talk so much, don’t be so loud-mouthed with your opinions,” is what I was told. The example of a much quieter woman was given to me as the epitome of how a female should behave in an office. Never mind that the example/ epitome and I are totally different people. I’m not a quiet person, I am opinionated. I know a lot of men who are quite similar, and receive no criticism about it. In fact the person telling me so was pretty much, even if he didn’t realize it, foisting his opinion of what is correct behavior unto me- making him not very different from what he was telling me not to be. Had his mother told him to behave like an entirely different person, she’d be smothering; but when a man says these kinds of things to me, he’s being protective, he’s offering advice- never mind that I didn’t ask for any advice from him.

The sad truth behind this kind of benign sexism is that it’s not just the men that exercise it, but women as well. Think about the last time a friend of yours bemoaned that she earns more than her spouse, or Carrie Bradshaw cried over the lack of chivalry in this world without so much as a thought to how this so-called chivalry came about? What is the point of me lifting weights in a gym if I can’t even open the door for myself? Why am I working to make money, if the man is supposed to pay for my dinner?

To be honest, I’m plain ol’ riled up. I did wonder briefly if I would have been less irritated had these same courts stood up for the Verma Committee suggestions, and not buckled under pressure like they did. It might have been easier to stomach some of this, if India wasn't one of the only countries where marital rape isn't a crime. If the court didn't have the authority to rule on intimate matters between people then, I can't believe they think they do now. I certainly don’t need Justice Easwar to protect my hurt feelings or pride from every guy out there who lies. To put a rest to this line of thinking, let me be honest, women lie too. Oh, yes we do; and we lie to get sex too. Take a breath Judge- People, in general, sometimes lie to get what they want; the world is not a fair place, pretending that it is will only help prolong a stereotype that’s both insulting and condescending.

Oh no they didn't!

So I read a news story in the L.A. Times a few weeks ago that really pissed me off. Basically it said that Muslims were the new untouchables of India. It detailed the bigotry an average Muslim citizen of India encounters within the confines of his ‘motherland’. It detailed how while the investigation of the Mumbai bomb blasts was concluded in less than four years, the events preceding it, the Hindu riots against the Muslim community in Mumbai are still undergoing investigation; while most of the top political figures and their right hand men, men who are responsible for hundreds of killings continue to rule the roost in Mumbai. 

The article made my blood boil: As an Indian, I’ve never been so angry before. All I could think was, this could not be true because I’m an Indian and this is not what I've been raised to believe, not what I've been taught in school.


Remember school? Where they told us about Nehru and Sardar Patel and the Indian dream? Where we were told that our country’s greatest claim to honor was that we decided to look above the petty confines that religion puts on a man. That in doing so we declared ourselves to be the world’s largest secular democracy and that this feeling of unanimity is deeply embedded in the Indian spirit. 

Seriously, I got really mad! I was poised and ready to write a scathing comment under the article to let this reporter know what I thought of him and his horrible lies about my country; and then I remembered- it was the school that had lied! 


Nothing that the reporter pointed out was untrue. Not a thing. In fact, he was almost being nice by not drawing attention to a million other examples that go much further in embarrassing any Indian who dares to proclaim that our country is in fact a secular nation. Lets just face it- It is not. 

It is a country where great artists who are also Muslim are forced to die in exile because their paintings happen to upset the religious sentiments of self proclaimed Hindutva zealots like the Shiv Sena. 

It is a country where the then ruling BJP party encouraged and endorsed a re-write of historical textbooks to suit their pro-Hindu core philosophy, making Muslims invaders and promoting Hindus as indigenous people of the Indian subcontinent. 

It is a country that provides around the clock protection for Bal Thackerey, a man who holds no official office in the nation’s government and whose famous words 'Islamic terrorism is growing and Hindu terrorism is the only way to counter it.' are quoted in Wikipedia for all the world to see.

and today it has the distinction of being a country whose highest court of law staged a cop out of such wginormous proportions, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it since Clinton’s drama of ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman... define sexual relations to me please’ 

The Supreme court order in the Gujarat riots case against Narendra Modi can’t be called anything more than what it is- a giant, giant exercise in wanking off. 


To take years to charge the man. To allow the man to run for office while he's being investigated for communal agitation. To order an Special Investigation Team. And then after years of passing the buck back and forth with the SIT that you appointed, to refuse to pass an order? say it with me- WANKING OFF!


and where is this case to go in the absence of any orders from the Supreme court- back to the local magistrate. In Ahmedabad. 


Ahmedabad, the capital of the State where Modi is the Chief Minister. A state where he is for all accounts and purposes, the most powerful man and pretty much reigns supreme. Where the Muslims are so scared that they're basically voting for him just to stay under his radar. (Sadly this wouldn't be the first time, think back to the post-riot elections in Mumbai where Shiv Sena actually got more Muslim votes than ever before)


It's such an obvious cop out that I’m just going to go all out and assume that the much spoken about sealed SIT report told the Supreme Court judges something that the last (almost) decade did not make clear to the rest of us. 

Perhaps it tells them that the testimony of senior IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who filed an affidavit detailing how Modi asked the local police to let ‘the Hindus vent’ and be indifferent to calls for help from victims during the riots, is actually false.

Perhaps it explains the mysterious murder of  BJP MLA Haren Pandya only a few months after he disclosed that Modi asked police not to come in the way of a Hindu backlash after Godra. 

Perhaps it explains also what Modi meant when he said ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction,’ no more than two days after the Godra incident and only a few weeks before the outbreak of riots in Gujarat.

Perhaps they’ve decided that since the rest of us are convinced the man is guilty, the only place that Mr. Modi can get a fair trial is in the heart of a land which he not only rules with an iron fist but where he is actually known as the ‘Iron Man’. (thereby forever sullying the term which was once synonymous with one of the founding fathers of what was meant to be a secular India - Sardar Patel)

Perhaps reports of the Gujarat government’s active attempts to suppress evidence in the Riots case have not reached the ears of our highest of high courts.

Perhaps they do not care to ask why after officer Bhat basically blew the whistle on the Gujarat CM in this highly controversial case and despite their instructions to keep him under a security coverage of 11 men, the Gujarat government - more specifically the State’s Director General of Police- unceremoniously downsized the security assigned to officer Bhatt to only one man.

Perhaps the Supreme court did not see anything gained by attaching importance to this much publicised by Tehelka extract from the SIT reports: ‘The Modi government appointed Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated advocates as public prosecutors in the riots cases. The government did not stop the illegal bandh called by the VHP on February 28, 2002. Police officers who took a neutral stand during the riots and prevented massacres were transferred’

So this is the state that the SC thinks is the ideal place for the fair and adequate trial of Narendra Modi? A state that he effectively has by the throat and where he controls virtually all spheres of life and branches of governance- including the judiciary and officers of the law. 


I'm also going to go ahead and assume that it's not the love he gets from Big Business that's making the Courts read into the evidence more (or less?) than the rest of us seem to have read- because I know that the judiciary of ALL people remember their history. Big Business love tyrants; investment in Germany shot through the roof during Hitler's reign as well. 


And also going to go ahead and assume that this has nothing to do with the fact that the Congress isn't looking good for the 2014 election which means chances are that the BJP might be in power once again (with their poster boy for progress: Narendra Modi as the strongest candidate)


So in another nine years, when the details of the SIT report are eventually 'considered' in the magistrates' court, we're all going to see that the Supreme court of India did not just refuse to exercise their Apex powers in favour of passing the buck on, in a case that could not demonstrate more EXACTLY why they were conferred with extraordinary jurisdiction in the first place; just to keep their own asses in comfortable leather seats for a few more years. 


Hopefully that's what's going to happen later. 


It's only been a few hours since the (non) order but the BJP is already calling it a complete vindication (they're probably right!) and Modi is tweeting about the greatness of God. 


And me? I'm Indian, a Hindu and deeply, deeply ashamed of both right now. 

Justice Walker: what's all the fuss about?

I love the fact that humans have a judicial system; seriously, it gives me hope for our future that at some point we decided to set a standard for ourselves as a whole which is higher than a large number of us as individuals can achieve. And I’ve always wondered about the moment when we came to this dual realization; that we were capable of these higher standards only if they were imposed by a higher power and that higher power wasn't some God. I’ve always thought it must have been a moment of great clarity and honesty. It seemed to me a sign that we are spearheading our own evolution - into a world where stupidity and stupidity alone was the enemy. 

Which is why all forms of discrimination disgust me and the people who practice the same only serve to remind me that we have not evolved as much as I might like to think. That in some ways, our society’s growth may be rotten in its very core ideas.

But in 2008, the Californian Supreme Court did a beautiful thing; they passed an order that stated that the right to marriage between consenting adults was a constitutional right and could not be hindered on the basis of the couples’ genders. In other words, they made legal something that any couple knows - marriage has nothing to do with sex! 

In doing so, these justices struck down two California Acts; one of them being Proposition 22 (introduced in the year 2000, would I be wrong to assume by an ex-Military man to spite his gay son?) by remarking that race, gender, sexual orientation were all constitutionally suspect basis to impose different standards on people. 

To say that this decision by a State Supreme court had far reaching consequences is to belittle the giant set of balls it took for these judges to author the order; this was a legal first for the civil rights of homosexuals to the same extent ( if not more so,) that Loving v Virginia was for African-Americans (the case overturned the state's marriage ban on mixed race couples). Soon after they got various other State Supreme Courts to grow a set as well and lo and behold! something good was achieved. 

Not for long though, nothing good can ever be allowed to last in an election year can it? Nope, state elections especially are for stirring shit, so come November of the same year, Californians are rushing to pass Proposition 8 - a ban on gay marriages. So much was the hurry, that they basically proposed a re-instatement of the archaic law that had only just been struck down by the judicial system. Just right here one would like to ask- why should I have any faith in the American judicial system when the people are so stupid - or is that racism?

But then in the spirit of the enterprising country that it is, they gave me another reason to believe. 2 gay individuals sued for their right to marry and the same was upheld by a Chief Justice Walker. The decision I remember came out August 4, 2 days before my birthday and really I thought it was a sign from God, letting me know that there were still sane and intelligence-loving individuals left in that stupid country that they like to call Gods’ own. 

Now the trial was widely publicized (not in the least because the defending party was the Terminator himself) and almost every legal blog on constitutional rights was abuzz with details of the case. More so, Americans like their gossip right? They like to know what you wear to bed and what cereal gets your particular set of bowels moving, so not surprisingly even I, who had no idea who Justice Walker was before this trial, came to hear that he was in fact gay. The story ran in almost every newspaper in the world in some form or the other. Justice Walker never admitted it but he never denied it either. 

The poor guy, I remember thinking lasted all these years in the profession without being ousted and then I remember thinking - well if he’s gay, he does have a slight vested interest in the case. And frankly I then thought, ‘well at least he’s got the right bias!’ [thus proving that I myself am not as evolved as I’d like to think but if Dick Cheney’s hunting buddy can try his cases then who are we kidding about recusal of judges in America?]. 

Of course then I took this idea to its logical end and realised that by this logic, a Catholic or a Mormon judge could never rule on the matter, nor could a straight married man (and how many unmarried straight male justices are there in the Supreme Court?) and so perhaps even the female judges. Take it a step further and an African American judge cannot try homicide cases (sorry for the generalisation guys, statistics are statistics) and women should never hear cases about abortion. So I realised that my idea was a moment of stupidity that really couldn’t hold water. 

In fact there are actually arguments to be made for including a minority member in the bench when a minority party’s rights are being heard. Studies of the US courts themselves can be quoted saying in panels which contain at least one female judge, the male judges were 15% more likely to rule in favor of a sex discrimination plaintiff than on panels that contain only men. Being watched makes us fairer; this is not only the truth but the very truth that the judicial system is based on. 

All this of course, assuming Justice Walker wanted to be married, it could backfire if he was a commitment phobe; Jay Leno was quick to point that out. Yes, it was even on Leno but the opposition - who apparently hear the voice of God telling them everything else - did not hear this news. If they did, they certainly did not bring it up in court. Perhaps because they too realised the countless arguments against it, perhaps they were too embarrassed with the ridiculous arguments they were already putting forth in court- the ones they fought tooth and nail to make sure we did not see. Perhaps they knew that just like race and gender, a judge’s sexual orientation was not a valid ground for recusal or perhaps, they simply did not have the balls it takes to ask a judge head-on to clarify his sexual orientation.

For whatever reason they didn't bring it up, they cannot now say that they did not know about Judge Walker's sexuality during trial and as is obvious from the State’s declination of appeal that there exist no other valid grounds for appeal, so what has changed? That Justice Walker has come out in public (after his retirement I might add) and announced that he has a homosexual partner of 10 years? Would it have made a difference if Justice Walker had revealed sooner that he was in a relationship? Me, personally I think he should have revealed it; not because its appropriate (in fact it is the most inappropriate measure of a judge and I feel compelled to apologise to the man for my opinion) but because it would have revealed the hypocrisy of the opponents in one fell swoop. What exactly is the argument here - that a straight married man  would have definitely ruled different? 

Apart from negating Leno’s contention that he may in fact be a commitment phobe, that changes nothing. The rules are clear, if you didn’t bring it up in trial, you cannot use it on appeal; so take that you homophobic, unhappily married assholes who filed the amicus brief [pardon my french] - for once the system works as it should. Perhaps Project Marriage and the other private parties who are appealing Justice Walker’s decision should be more worried about the issue of locus standi - after all, where do they get off challenging another party’s right to marriage? how does it effect them in the least?! Or perhaps they are aware that this question will be their undoing and that is what all this hulabaloo is really about.  

Having said that and in the interests of not jinxing the proceedings: I’m knocking on wood.