Rule of Law, Independence of Judiciary & Separation of Powers: Before independence andafter independence

Warren Hastings could resist a Supreme Court's sheriff with Company troops. Sir Elijah Impey could sentence a man to death within months of that man accusing his close friend of corruption. Today, a High Court judge cannot be removed from office by the government whose decisions she has just ruled against. The distance between those two worlds is exactly what this topic is about — and it is the idea, more than any single Act, that this whole paper has been leading up to.

In two minutes

Rule of Law means government by settled law rather than arbitrary power, Independence of the Judiciary means judges can decide against the executive without fear of retaliation, and Separation of Powers means no single organ of government holds all three of legislative, executive and judicial power — and India's colonial history is largely a story of these three ideas being absent, then slowly built in.

The rest of this chapter

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