CLP: Constitutionalising the Party

Speaker: Professor Tarun Khaitan (Oxford)

Chair: Professor Jeff King (UCL)

Abstract:

Mainstream political parties are in crisis in several established democracies around the world. Their subversion, capture, or decline has usually been accompanied with democratic deconsolidation. In this lecture, Professor Tarunabh Khaitan will argue that democratic constitutions should seek to achieve three distinct, and sometimes conflicting, objectives in relation to political parties:

i. Support political parties to function as efficient intermediaries between the state and its people (the ‘party support principle’);

ii. Ensure a separation of the ruling party and the state (the ‘party-state separation principle’); and

iii. Discourage political parties from operating as factions (the ‘anti-faction principle’).

He will further map a range of design possibilities that might aid constitutions in pursuing these objectives.

About the Speaker

Tarun Khaitan is the Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at Wadham College (Oxford), currently on special leave for four years to undertake an Australian Research Council funded Future Fellowship at Melbourne Law School. He is also a visiting Global Professor of Law at New York University Law School, the General Editor of the Indian Law Review, an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, an Affiliate of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and an Associate of the Oxford Human Rights Hub.

His monograph entitled A Theory of Discrimination Law (OUP 2015 hbk, South Asia edition and Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016 pbk) has been cited by the European Court of Human Rights and reviewed very positively in leading journals, including in Law and Philosophy, where Sophia Moreau said "In this magnificent and wide-ranging book ... Khaitan attempts what very few others have tried." The book won the Woodward Medal (with a cash prize of 10,000 Australian dollars) in 2019 for making ‘a significant contribution to knowledge in a field of humanities and social sciences.’ A full list of reviews is available here.

He helped draft the Indian Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2017. His research on discrimination law has been quoted and relied upon by the Indian Supreme Court. He writes regularly for newspapers and blogs: links to his columns are available here. Prof Khaitan was awarded the 2018 Letten Prize, a 2 Million Norwegian Kroner award given biennially to a young researcher under the age of 45 conducting excellent research of great social relevance. He is using a part of the award towards setting up the Indian Equality Law Programme, aimed at capacity-building for early-career scholars.

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