In this article, the author argues for the use of feminist legal methods in adjudicating women’s rights by comparing two distinct judicial approaches emerging from recent decisions: the right to abortion and the criminalization of marital rape.
Author
Shraddha Chaudhary, Lecturer, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India; Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Summary
Feminists have demonstrated that positivist law adopts a patriarchal lens that marginalizes or ignores women’s lived realities. This leads to legal decision-making that does not reflect women’s real and varied experiences. Therefore, in this article, I argue for the use of feminist legal methods in adjudicating women’s rights by comparing two distinct judicial approaches emerging from recent decisions of the Indian Supreme Court and Delhi High Court respectively on issues that affect women’s rights and lives profoundly: the right to abortion and the criminalization of marital rape.
I contrast the approaches taken by the Supreme Court in X v The Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department (2022) and by the Delhi High Court in RIT Foundation v Union of India (2022) through Hari Shankar J’.s opinion, to demonstrate how the use of feminist legal methods leads to findings more in tune with the gendered needs and concerns of women.
Published in: Indian Law Review
To read the full article, please click here.
