Judicial Review of "Internal Parliamentary Proceedings": The Dialogic and Non-dialogic Approaches
This
article compares the internal proceedings jurisprudence of the highest courts
of the United Kingdom (UK), India, and Bangladesh. Though the Supreme Courts of
Bangladesh and India have shown general deference to the debates in parliament,
they have shown willingness to lift the veil of those “internal proceedings”
that might have constitutional questions involved. It appears that the UK,
India, and Bangladesh’s respective models of judicial review and
parliament-judiciary relationship influence their internal proceedings
jurisprudence. While the Indian and Bangladeshi Supreme Courts’ understandings
of the internal proceedings doctrine are conditioned by their self-aggrandised
posture of guardianship over the Constitution, the British judiciary’s approach
is largely dialogic and conciliatory. Indian and Bangladeshi Supreme Courts’
adversarial approach frequently places them in direct confrontation with the
legislative and political branches. While the Indian Supreme Court does not shy
away from such confrontation, Bangladesh Supreme Court usually tries to avoid
it and, in the process, ends up taking fluctuating and self-contradictory
positions in different cases. The author argues that the UK’s dialogic model of
judicial review provides for a rather congenial basis for principled judicial
consideration of the internal proceedings doctrine.
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