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Romana: I dont think we should interfere.

The Doctor: Interfere? Of course we should interfere. Always do what youre best at, thats what I say.

Doctor Who, Nightmare of Eden, 1979

For years, Republicans have mischaracterized Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act as a federal takeover of health care in the United States.

All those doctors, nurses, orderlies, cooks, insurance clerks and stockholders in for-profit hospitals would be shocked to hear that the federal government has seized their practices and properties. Because, of course, it did no such thing.

What Obamacare did was put some guardrails around how health care was paid for. As a result, health care in the United States stinks a little less, even though it is still the worst in the developed world, and is accessible to many more people in this, the only First World nation where medical bankruptcy is even a thing.

Now Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is among Republicans accusing Joe Biden and other Democrats of plotting a federal takeover of the American system of elections. A system, Romney says, that is and always has been run by state and local officials with no federal meddling.

Senator, Ulysses S. Grant would like a word.

Proposed voting rights legislation would not take the operation of elections away from the states. It would, like the ACA, set up some minimal standards and guards. The fact is that federal oversight interference, if you will has never made elections worse in any state or county. It has only made them better. And it is baked into the system.

In Article I of the Constitution of the United States: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.

Article IV: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.(The capitalization of the word Republican in this case does not denote the Republican Party, which did not then exist, but is an example of the habit of the time, perhaps borrowed from German, to capitalize lots of important words.)

The 14th Amendment: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ... The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The 15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. ... The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

President Grant called the 15th Amendment, a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free Government to the present day.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, as well as many previous, and bipartisan, voting rights laws over the years have been, in the words of the Constitution, appropriate legislation passed to keep the promise of equal access to the polls.

Until now. Without doubt, states North and South are moving to limit the right and ability to vote in ways that, even if they dont use the words, are intended to make it more difficult for people of color, poor people, working people, students, to vote. Not, necessarily, more difficult than it was 100 years ago. But more difficult than it was two years ago, something Congress has the right and the duty to stop.

Romney tries to minimize the impact of proposed changes by arguing that, even as states such as Georgia roll back such provisions as early voting or ballot drop boxes, those states laws are in some cases still more generous than the practices in blue states such as New York. Fine. Pass the new law, and everyone will be on the same page. Like the post-Civil War amendments intended.

Romneys arguments about election laws do make a couple of good points. One is that the voting provisions that have passed the House and run aground in the Senate dont face some of the most nefarious aspects of Donald Trumps plot to steal the 2020 election. The parts involving fake slates of electors and such. More legislation is needed to handle that.

The other is that the nuts and bolts of elections are traditionally run on the ground by states and counties, with guidelines set by Congress and enforced by the Department of Justice and the courts. The proposed laws wont change that, and they shouldnt.

Elections run as a fully federal enterprise would be easier to steal, allowing someone to hack into a single data system. Decentralizing the actual voting and vote-counting process was and is a good thing that should continue, if only to make it harder for anyone to cook the books.

Of course, to really protect elections, we must eliminate the Electoral College. With the current system, someone could fake or steal just a few thousand votes in a swing state or two and tilt the whole result. Whereas electing a president by popular nationwide vote with the votes counted in each of 3,142 counties would be a much more accurate measure of the national will even as it would be much more difficult to hack.

Romney says Biden was elected to, in effect, not be Donald Trump, and no more. But without federal enforcement of universal access to the polls, the chances that Trump and Trumpism will return could not be greater.

George Pyle, reading The New York Times at The Rose Establishment.

George Pyle, opinion editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, has been contemplating Ron Chernows 1,000-page biography of Ulysses S. Grant for about two years now. He is on page 18.

gpyle@sltrib.com

Twitter, @debatestate

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The Constitution expects that the federal government will set standards for democracy in every state. - Salt Lake Tribune

In 2020, as the world shut down to insulate against COVID-19, a disturbing side effect of the pandemic began quietly taking root in some corners of the world: democratic backsliding and growing autocracies.

While the news worries freedom lovers everywhere, democracy could rebound once governments lift their health restrictions as soon as the pandemic ends. So says V-Dem, a Swedish nonprofit that tracks the health of democracies across a variety of indicators.

While some nations have seen a significant deterioration of freedoms during the past 18 months, the pandemics direct impact on the vitality of democracy itself has so far been limited, it says. But those who run Washingtons top global development organizations arent waiting to sound the alarm.

More people are struggling for democratic rights and freedoms around the world than really ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Daniel Twining, president of the International Republican Institute (IRI), told me in a recent episode of Democracy! The Podcast.

Twining argues that democracy doesnt work without full and effective citizen engagement, something he says has been badly compromised by malign influence and disinformationmostly from foreign regimes such as Russia and China. We see people stepping out all over the place. We also see repressive governments cracking down in, frankly, new and sophisticated, and dangerous ways.

Twining, along with Anthony Banbury, president and CEO of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and Ambassador Derek Mitchell, president of the National Democratic Institute, lead the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS). Funded by the US Agency for International Development, CEPPSwhich uses V-Dem data to inform its programmingoversees USAIDs largest democracy assistance awards.

Besides helping advance democracy in more than 50 nations, the consortium has also thrown its support behind the Summit for Democracy. The Biden administration has invited more than 100 countries to attend, and will hold at least one follow-up summit in 2022.

The fact is, the autocrats are on the offensive, and they have a sense that democracy is fragile, and, the smaller d democrats around the world, feel like theyre on the defensive, and theyre playing a weak hand where theyre playing it with confidence, and theyre trying to gain an advantage, said Mitchell, who in 2012 was the first US ambassador to return to Burma after a 22-year break in diplomatic relations.

While some may wonder if advocates exaggerate the degree to which COVID-19 restrictions have eroded democracy, V-Dems report shows that even the smallest declines in freedom are troublesome, because most autocracies develop in a predictable mannerbeginning with restrictions on media, academic freedom and civil society. Then governments promote polarization among their own citizens with disinformation campaigns via social media before moving on to blatant disrespect and intolerance for opposing political views. And thats when more visible attacks on democracy become apparent, which makes less inconspicuous activities, like the governments attitude towards journalists, reliable indicators of democratic health.

Still, some experts find that lengthy lockdowns and other restrictive health measures have egregiously and unnecessarily accelerated democratic decay in places like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Paraguay. El Salvador, for instance, has seen widespread crackdowns on journalists as well as human rights violations in the past year. Observers say President Nayib Bukele is escalating his abuse of power through manipulating the judicial system with an eye toward his possible re-election in 2024.

Democracy in any country is always a work in progress, says Banbury, a 20-year veteran of the United Nations, including seven years as the UNs assistant secretary-general for field support. Even in the worst public health environments, democratic leaders need to respect constraints on emergency powers and pursue good-faith efforts to hold elections when it can be done safely.

Banbury, who designed and led the UNs first-ever emergency health mission in 2014, said at even at the height of Liberias Ebola crisis, IFES worked with the National Elections Commission and medical experts to integrate a range of practical health measures, such as social distancing and revised processing, which helps ensure a safe exchange of ballot papers, ID cards, and other voting materials in this type of climate.

Some countries, like Honduras, have weathered the restraints of the current pandemic well enough to deliver successful elections. Preliminary results from Honduran presidential elections in late November saw the largest voter turnout in 24 years. The victory of Xiomara Castros Freedom and Refoundation Party marks the first time a woman leads Honduras. While Castro who beat 11 other candidatespromises no abuse of power, her win ends the 12-year rule of the conservative National Party of Honduras.

Elections are critical to protecting democratic rights during a time like the COVID-19 pandemic when significant state power is often concentrated in the executive branch through powerful emergency measures, Banbury said. It is important that leaders reschedule elections as quickly as possible, if the public health environment is so dire that they genuinely need to be postponed.

Adds Mitchell: Democracy is not simply about a process or an election. Its a culture that has to be developed [and] re-energized by the citizens of every generation This is the challenge of our time. There are authoritarian opportunists who want to prey on those who are frustrated, or concerned about the course of democracy. And theyre willing to get out there and use our moments of weakness to gain advantage. We cant let that happen.

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V-Dem warns of democratic backsliding in covid's wake - The Washington Diplomat

As we turn the final pages on a tumultuous 2021, all this week The Fulcrum will share a year-end series of guest commentaries from a distinguished group of columnists on the current state of electoral reform and what we may expect in the upcoming year.

Penniman is the founder and CEO of Issue One, a crosspartisan political reform organization, and author of Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It.

Our democracy is under attack. The campaign to sow doubt in our elections and create distrust in our institutions is extremely motivated, and bad actors are gaining ground across the country.

This year alone, we saw 19 states enact new laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote, and several states placed election administration under greater partisan control. Barring federal action, we will see even more states in 2022 take steps to undermine the will of the people and set the stage for a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen in our history.

Thats why Congress must act. Many common sense proposals which benefit from a long history of bipartisanship and are supported by overwhelming majorities of Americans have already been introduced. But Republicans in Congress have repeatedly filibustered these bills, going so far as to block debate on the very reforms needed to fix our broken political system.

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We cannot allow this inaction to continue into next year. If we want to save our democracy, we must act now. As the leading crosspartisan political reform group in Washington, D.C., heres what Issue One is focused on achieving in 2022.

Our election officials and frontline poll workers have been facing death threats on a daily basis since the 2020 presidential election. These have been fueled by baseless claims of fraud despite former President Donald Trumps own Department of Homeland Security, and attorney general, declaring the 2020 election safe and secure.

While the Department of Justice launched a task force earlier this year to investigate threats against election workers, there have been few arrests or criminal convictions, and many secretaries of state are frustrated that the task force hasnt been deployed aggressively enough.

Our election officials are the embodiment of democracy in action helping members of their communities register to vote, find their polling locations, cast their ballots and ensure that every vote is counted accurately. Many now live in fear, and states are bracing for mass retirements in the wake of these threats, which leaves positions open to extremists. As former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, a leader of the Stop the Steal movement, said last month, Were taking over all the elections.

In addition to the DOJ stepping up its game, members of Congress should seek to pass bipartisan legislation protecting election officials from intimidation and threats of violence.

Weve seen a growing number of states move to strip local election officials of their power and place election oversight into the hands of partisan politicians. Its difficult to interpret these laws as anything but election sabotage an attempt to do what failed in 2020 by making it legal for politicians to toss out legitimate votes if they dont like the outcome.

Principled Republicans, Democrats and independents must stand against this trend before it takes over not just purple states and red states but also blue states.

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, mail-in ballots, early voting and additional measures helped ensure that Americans were able to safely exercise their sacred freedom to vote.

What was the response in some states to this tremendous success? Making it harder to vote.

The massive disinformation campaign that Trump and many of his supporters continue to spread about the 2020 campaign has empowered lawmakers to roll back voting modalities they once championed like mail-in voting.

And for what gain? In Novembers gubernatorial election in Virginia, where steps have been taken in recent years to make voting more accessible, we saw how Republicans appear to have benefitted from some of the very proposals that have now stalled in Congress including early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and automatic voter registration.

Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would at least empower the Department of Justice to take a closer look under the hoods of some of these laws and make sure they dont discriminate against certain groups of voters. Congress has previously reauthorized the VRA on five separate occasions by overwhelming majorities of Republicans and Democrats since its original passage in 1965, and they should once again affirm that bipartisanship.

Weve all seen the classic examples of gerrymandering zigzagging districts engineered down to partisan perfection. Its a tried and true weapon that both political parties have mastered, long ago coming to the realization that the best way to win elections and hold onto power is to prevent races from becoming competitive in the first place.

Its had a profound effect on the makeup of Congress: of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, only 10 percent are considered up for grabs in next years midterm elections. Which means that 90 percent of House members need to worry mainly about getting through their primaries, either by raising so much money they prophylactically scare off competitors or by being so extreme that they cultivate the affinity of base voters.

When we talk about the dysfunctionality on Capitol Hill, we have to realize that its in large part the result of structural problems, and that many of those problems are fixable. Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around. We must fix this undemocratic problem.

Our ability to elect a president and vice president fairly and peacefully every four years is

a hallmark of our democratic system. For over a century, the Electoral Count Act has governed this process and Congress role. But the 19th century law is outdated and rife with arcane language and ambiguities, opening the door to misinterpretations and exploitation.

Its time for Congress to modernize this law, clarify the role of the vice president, rein in the objection process and prevent one party from attempting to overturn the will of the people.

We cannot leave this to chance. Both parties should work together to get this done and restore Americans trust in our democratic process.

Disinformation permeates every corner of our society. It fueled an attack on our nations Capitol and continues to run rampant across all forms of media, perpetuating lies about the election and other falsehoods.

Until we confront the harm disinformation is causing, it will be extremely difficult to accomplish any of the important reforms outlined above. We cannot hand the future of our country over to algorithms that distort the truth and allow lies to spread faster than real journalism.

Congress cannot let these platforms off the hook. Members from both parties have already expressed interest in bipartisan solutions following disturbing reports about the dangers facing young people. It is crucial that legislation also addresses the destructive power of disinformation.

Our broken political system fueled by big money has created an environment in which the vast majority of ordinary citizens today no longer have a seat at the table. 2022 must be the year we change course and fix this. The American people must have confidence in our democracy.

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Six things we must do to save our democracy and protect our elections in 2022 - The Fulcrum

Chile has become the global capital of resurgent opposition to neoliberalism and resistance to fascism, electing the worlds youngest president, Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student protest leader. Boric, a member of Chiles congress since 2014 and law school graduate, will lead the countrys first left unity government since the bloody United States-backed military coup which overthrew democratically elected leader Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973 (the other September 11).

The lefts decisive victory in Chile, with about 55 percent of the vote, came amid a large turnout of women and youth. This included a 1-million vote margin over his far right opponent, Jos Antonio Kast, who positioned himself as an heir to the legacy of the Gen. Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. Borics mandate simultaneously embodies the hopes awakened by Chiles national popular uprising in October and November 2019, and a rejection of Kasts embrace of, and personal connections to, the Pinochet regime. These included his older brothers strategic roles as head of the countrys central bank and labor minister. Kast waged a campaign characterized by racist, xenophobic and patriarchal appeals to the need to restore national security and order, and to defend traditional family values in the wake of the 2019 protests.

The result marks a historic shift which has widespread implications for the U.S., for the Latin American and Caribbean region, and globally. Similar hopes were awakened 50 years ago by President Allendes Popular Unity government in Chile, which was targeted by the U.S. during the Richard Nixon administration and specifically by Henry Kissinger, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, and eventually overthrown with U.S. encouragement.

Thousands of victims were killed, disappeared, tortured and exiled throughout 17 years of dictatorship under Pinochet, who turned Chile into a global model for the neoliberal orthodoxy associated with the disciples of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys. The so-called Chilean Miracle was closely aligned with the politics of President Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. This model was soon emulated regionally, with disastrous results, in countries such as Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, and globally through the so-called Washington Consensus promoted by the U.S. through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Many in Chile and Latin America are waiting to see how the U.S. will react to a Boric administration and a governing coalition that includes Chiles Communist Party as a partner. As more people around the world view the U.S. and the European Union as threats to global democracy, social movements throughout Latin America and beyond are mobilizing to defend the democratic result of Chiles elections, as they did during Pinochets dictatorship.

Borics victory reflects a new alignment of political forces in Chile which displaces the center-left and center-right blocs which have dominated the spectrum and alternated in power since Pinochets ouster in 1990. Borics new left leadership first emerged while he was a student activist within the context of national student protests in 2006, 2009 and 2011, which laid the foundation for the 2019 uprising. The massive 2019 protests led to a November 2019 civic pact which initiated Chiles current constitutional reform process as well as the emergence of the broad left coalition that eventually backed his presidential candidacy.

Borics election also reflects an emergent regional trend, coinciding with Xiomara Castros November election in Honduras and Luis Arces October 2020 election in Bolivia, which in each case effectively reversed coups in 2009 and 2019, respectively, that sought to shift both countries back into closer alignment with the U.S. This left trend also includes the victory of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

The president-elects four-year term will coincide with Chiles promulgation of a new constitution, intended to dismantle almost 50 years of authoritarian hegemony. The Boric presidency thus has a historic opportunity to complete Chiles prolonged democratic transition and process of transitional justice.

The new leader pledged in his first address as president-elect that his approach would be focused explicitly on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition as guiding threads for his administrations policies. Boric also prioritized satisfaction of the demands of Chiles powerful womens and Indigenous movements as central driving forces in his agenda. This will likely include redefinition of Chile as a pluri-national and pluri-cultural state, as Bolivia did in its 2008 constitution, and new guarantees for reproductive rights and LGBT rights in a country where they have been traditionally restricted.

Borics campaign was notable for taking an eco-socialist approach to environmental issues. His election night speech included an explicit rejection of the controversial $2.5 billion Dominga iron, copper and gold mining project promoted by the Andes Iron company in the Atacama desert, 500 miles north of Santiago and near a conservation area that is home to 80 percent of the worlds Humboldt penguins. Destroying the world is destroying ourselves. We do not want more sacrifice zones. We do not want projects that destroy our country, that destroy communities, and we exemplify this in a case that has been symbolic: No to Dominga, he said. Outgoing conservative Chilean President Sebastian Piera recently had to fight off an impeachment process based on his familys role as investors in the Dominga project, as revealed in the release of the Pandora Papers by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalism.

The new administrations approach will be centered around an overall commitment to advancing human rights, and is specifically focused on the implementation of economic and social rights to lay the foundation for a dignified life for all Chileans, including rights to health, education and housing. The emphasis here is on reversing the impact of neoliberal policies which have deepened poverty and inequality and undermined the rights of pensioners. This approach is being combined with an emphasis on promoting a care economy centered around reinforced state public health guarantees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Difficult tests lie ahead for the Boric presidency, as it navigates contending visions of left politics in Latin America in the current historical moment. Boric identifies with certain dimensions of the most progressive currents in European-style social democracy. This is reflected in his campaigns emphasis on state guarantees of economic, social and cultural rights, and climate justice. But these characteristics are combined with the bottom-up politics that characterize Latin Americas most powerful social movements for human rights, grounded in the demands of the poor and other marginalized sectors. These are also shaped by feminist demands for equality and against sexual and gender violence; by Indigenous peoples for autonomy and self-determination and against extractivist mega-development policies and paradigms; and in defense of migrant rights. This is a more complex mix than is suggested by analyses that reduce Latin Americas left to polarized camps that are either statist or anti-state (or autonomist), and thus necessarily in conflict with each other. Borics trajectory and horizons suggest a much more fluid relationship between the state and social movements. But the question in practice will be the extent to which Borics administration is directly accountable to the social movements which made his victory possible.

He will face key tests as the constitutional reform process evolves, which is intended to culminate in a referendum on approval of a new text sometime after July 2022. It is likely that the new constitution will take historic steps in recognizing the rights of women, and for the first time, of Indigenous peoples, among other important reforms. Measures of this kind will generate pressures on Boric to reaffirm or retreat from his campaign platform. The elected assembly which is drafting the text the first in the world of its kind to have gender parity is significantly to the left of Chiles congress, and of Borics second round campaign, which successfully contended for a decisive slice of a bloc of centrist voters.

But Borics mandate was also spurred by a significant increase in turnout that was concentrated among women and younger voters, and overall by those who supported the massive 2019 protests. The balance struck in governance and implementation between these sectors will shape the new governing coalitions aspirations and their limits.

Global and national markets have already reacted negatively to Borics victory, which will accelerate pressures by global capital and its local allies to moderate his campaign pledges. Boric will have to navigate the increasingly intense regional and global rivalry between traditional U.S. hegemony and Chinas ascent, as a Latin American country which has positioned itself as a key player in the Pacific Basin. China and other Asian countries are by far Chiles most important trade partners (57.7 percent of exports in 2020), far outpacing North America (U.S. and Canada 15.2 percent), other Latin American countries (13.1 percent including Mexico) and the EU (12.2 percent).

Moreover, it is closer, deeply troubled U.S. allies such as Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and Haiti that have much lower levels of democratic legitimacy and human rights compliance, compared to states that may become potentially more independent of U.S. domination, such as Chile and Peru. Honduras is a much more problematic case because of its greater vulnerability to more direct forms of U.S. intervention related to the drug war and longstanding processes of forced migration. The exercise of U.S. hegemony through sanctions tends to strengthen its targets rather than weaken them, and to harm the most vulnerable sectors in countries that have been singled out in this way. There is also extensive debate about the empirical evidence either way in terms of the impact of such measures on the supposed promotion of democracy.

This is further underlined by how U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which violate international law and are deeply rooted in Cold War assumptions and methods, have themselves undermined democratic options within those contexts. Potential center-left victories that are on the horizon in 2022 in Colombia and Brazil will provide additional tests for these overall trends, as the U.S. scrambles to respond. The Biden administrations actual response to the lefts victory in Chile, and that of global and national capital, in practice, beyond the traditional rhetoric of welcoming messages, will be a crucial indicator.

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Radical Democracy Is Resurgent in Latin America. How Will the US Respond? - Truthout

When I recently spoke in Parliament about the need for an independent judiciary, I did it because we still look up to the courts with great hope. Even when other powerful institutions appear to be faltering and floundering, people continue to have faith in the judiciary as the last post of justice.

During the winter session of Parliament, I spoke specifically about the challenges to the independence of the judiciary. The twin dangers that would inflict irreparable damage to the judiciary, I said, are the lack of diversity and the secrecy around the appointment of judges. The collegium has indeed found brilliant judges but the system needs an overhaul.

While it is true that senior judges with integrity, erudition and vision will certainly find suitable people who can occupy the high seats of justice, the selection process is fraught with inherent dangers. An executive that believes in excessive power will always find it expedient to have an individual-centric rather than system-centric apparatus. It is no surprise, therefore, that the former CJI Ranjan Gogoi made it clear in his memoirs that he wanted to avoid any confrontation with the Centre.

We have seen such tendencies play out in front of our eyes of the most senior judges appearing to yield to the Centre. It is imperative that we need to draw up a system that emulates the best practices from elsewhere. The executive, legislature, judiciary, the bar, the public must be represented in the judicial appointments commission. The general public should have a crystal-clear view of the people who are going to be the judges of our top courts. The resultant transparency will ward off growing suspicion over judicial appointments.

The social composition of the judiciary has always been a matter of concern. Its not that any particular caste can be blamed for this trend. Yet, a community that hardly accounts for 4 per cent of the population occupying more than 30 per cent posts in the higher judiciary is a cause for worry. The chief architect of our Constitution and the first law minister, B R Ambedkar, would certainly not have envisaged such a scenario. Out of 47 Chief Justices of India to date, at least 14 have been Brahmins. From 1950 to 1970, the maximum strength of the Supreme Court was 14 judges of whom 11 were Brahmins. From 1971 to 1989, the number saw a further spike, and 18 judges were Brahmins. Irrespective of who is in power, the average 30-40 per cent representation of Brahmins in the SC has remained constant. The situation is no different in the high courts. For example, out of 45 judges of the Karnataka High Court, 17 are Brahmins.

We have had brilliant judges with high levels of competence and social commitment from among them. No one can forget the contribution of luminaries such as V R Krishna Iyer, P N Bhagwati, Y V Chandrachud, P B Gajendragadkar and others whose judgments enriched the nation and armed millions in their aspirations to secure justice. But should we shut our eyes to the fact that our highest court didnt have a judge from the OBC, SC or ST communities until 1980? Merit and quality do not have anything to do with the massive under-representation of Dalits, OBCs, minorities and women.

The omissions and commissions of constitutional courts have a huge impact on a democracy like ours. It was precisely because of this that there were raging debates on verdicts like Rafale, divesting the powers of CBI director Alok Verma and the silence over the abrogation of Article 370 and the conversion of a state into a Union Territory. Besides, despite the Election Commission expressing serious reservations about the anonymous electoral bonds schemes by describing it as a retrograde step, our judiciary has not thought it appropriate to adjudicate on it.

The legislature, judiciary and the media are crucial to ensure checks and balances in a democratic system. We all know how our legislature and media have turned out to be.

The judiciary remains the only flicker of hope. When Chief Justice N V Ramana commented about the way in which laws are made, they were considered to be words of wisdom. He lamented the sorry state of affairs on law-making and parliamentary debate in the country. After the conclusion of yet another chaotic Parliament session, his words must ring louder in our ears.

The Chief Justice also rued the demise of investigative journalism in the country. Courageous journalism makes democracy robust and, as a journalist, l have been closely watching how media exposs have influenced both the legislature and executive. These days, ministers interviews have replaced investigative stories and we can imagine how this metamorphosis leaves our democracy utterly deprived.

Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay High Court said: History will not judge us by our highways or statues, it will judge us by how well we have preserved the constitutional idea of India and saved it from being undermined. Governments will come and go but the idea of India, the constitutional idea of India, parliamentary democracy must be protected. In the constitutional scheme of things, there is no such thing as too much noise or too much dissent. Indian democracy requires a vibrant judiciary to guide us through these dark hours of authoritarian excesses.

The writer is a CPI(M) member of the Rajya Sabha

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Judiciary is Indian democracys only flicker of hope - The Indian Express