Role and Functions of Judiciary

Ask ten people what a court does and nine will say ‘punish criminals’. That is one function among several, and the exam expects you to know the others — because a judiciary that only punished crime could never have given India Public Interest Litigation, judicial review, or a single rule of precedent.

In two minutes

The judiciary's functions go well beyond deciding criminal guilt: it settles civil disputes, interprets law and the Constitution, protects rights, reviews the constitutionality of laws, and through its own decisions, creates ‘judge-made law’ that binds future cases.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – I: Political Theory and Political Organisation on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.