Gautam Bhatia – författare

Offend, Shock, or Disturb is a comprehensive examination of free speech under the Indian Constitution. It explores Indian free speech jurisprudence from a doctrinal, comparative, and philosophical perspective. Taking as its point of departure the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech and expression under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(2) of the Constitution of India, the book discusses, clause by clause, the development of law from colonial times to present-day controversies.Issues relating to public order, sedition, obscenity and pornography, hate speech, film and online censorship, privacy and defamation, the contempt of court, the nature of speech and the relationship between free speech and economic structure, and the inter-relationships between them have been comprehensively examined. As free speech campaigns gain intensity by the day, the book presents the myriad understandings and limitations of the free speech law, and suggests possible pathways for the future.

This book provides a new conceptual model for considering constitutional rights from a comparative perspective. A prestigious club bars women from standing for executive positions. A homeowner refuses to rent their house to a person on grounds of their race. Each of these real-life cases involves the exercise of private power, which deprives individuals of their rights. Can these individuals invoke the Constitution in response?Horizontal Rights: An Institutional Approach brings a fresh perspective to these age-old, yet fraught issues. This book argues that constitutional scholarship and doctrine, across jurisdictions, has proceeded from an inarticulate premise called ‘default verticality.’ This is based on a set of underlying philosophical assumptions, which presumes that constitutional rights are presumptively applicable against the State, and need special justification to be applied against private parties.Departing from default verticality and its assumptions, this book argues that constitutional rights should apply horizontally between private parties where the existence of an economic, social, or cultural institution creates a difference in power between the parties, and allows one to violate the rights of the other. The institutional approach aims to be both theoretically convincing, as well as a providing a workable model for constitutional adjudication. It applies both to classic issues such as restrictive covenants, as well as cutting-edge contemporary legal problems around the regulation of platform work and the distribution of property upon divorce. This promises to be an exciting new contribution to the global conversation around constitutional rights and private power.

This book provides a new conceptual model for considering constitutional rights from a comparative perspective. A prestigious club bars women from standing for executive positions. A homeowner refuses to rent their house to a person on grounds of their race. Each of these real-life cases involves the exercise of private power, which deprives individuals of their rights. Can these individuals invoke the Constitution in response?Horizontal Rights: An Institutional Approach brings a fresh perspective to these age-old, yet fraught issues. This book argues that constitutional scholarship and doctrine, across jurisdictions, has proceeded from an inarticulate premise called ‘default verticality.’ This is based on a set of underlying philosophical assumptions, which presumes that constitutional rights are presumptively applicable against the State, and need special justification to be applied against private parties.Departing from default verticality and its assumptions, this book argues that constitutional rights should apply horizontally between private parties where the existence of an economic, social, or cultural institution creates a difference in power between the parties, and allows one to violate the rights of the other. The institutional approach aims to be both theoretically convincing, as well as a providing a workable model for constitutional adjudication. It applies both to classic issues such as restrictive covenants, as well as cutting-edge contemporary legal problems around the regulation of platform work and the distribution of property upon divorce. This promises to be an exciting new contribution to the global conversation around constitutional rights and private power.

A key book about rights, separation of powers and the State, which assesses a decade and a half of transformative constitutionalism in Kenya through the lens of landmark constitutional judgments, discussing their international import and suggesting new pathways towards democratic constitutionalism.In 2010, after more than two decades of struggle, Kenya's new Constitution was born. Widely accepted to be "transformative" in nature, in the decade and a half since it was enacted, the Constitution has been at the centre of national discourse. And in that time, the country's courts have been confronted with crucial and high-stakes constitutional disputes, which are both distinctively Kenyan in nature, but also, are disputes that have long been common to constitutional democracies around the world: they include issues around constitutional change, federalism, imperial presidencies, the role of the legislature, election disputes, land rights, and horizontality, among others. Drawing comparisons with constitutional jurisdictions globally, which often rely upon precedent from each other's jurisdictions, this book examines transformative constitutionalism under the 2010 Constitution, and shows that while Kenyan courts have been informed by - and been in conversation with - global precedent, they have crafted unique and particular solutions.The book excavates the engagement of Kenyan Courts with the 2010 Kenyan Constitution to highlight the unique and innovative contributions that Kenyan courts have made to global constitutional problems and to suggest pathways for the future. Showcasing the jurisprudence of the courts in action, this book discusses how and when the power to amend a constitution can be limited or constrained and how constitutional change can be insulated from political interference. It examines issues of parliamentarianism and devolution in the context of the national controversy around constituency development funds, and reveals how Kenya provides a model for understanding constitutional separation of powers. It looks at the process for challenging presidential elections, and details how the Supreme Court has aimed to set out clear legal and evidentiary standards for how a court ought to deal with a pure political dispute - something with which judiciaries around the world have struggled. It explores the evolution of socio-economic rights, including the right to housing, non-discrimination, and equality before the law, as well as the question of how transformative constitutionalism interrogates private power. Placing contemporary Kenyan constitutionalism at its heart, this work of comparative constitutional law asks what the ongoing, global constitutional conversation can learn from the Kenyan experience under its new order.