Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Thursday said lawyers play an indispensable role in shaping constitutional discourse. While judges have the ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution, it is the lawyers who craft and present the interpretive frameworks for the judiciary to consider, said CJI, while addressing MK Nambyar memorial lecture here.
“In this sense, interpretation is as much a job of a lawyer as it is of a judge, for without robust legal arguments and advocacy, constitutional interpretation would lack the necessary depth and diversity of perspectives,” said Chandrachud. Noted lawyer MK Nambayar is father of former Attorney General KK Venugopal. “As we celebrate the legacy of Mr MK Nambyar, we must remember that there were many more like him, who left their imprints on the Constitution, enhanced it, infused it with meaning, and took the texts to its legal destiny. The reason we celebrate them is that they read in between jurisprudential lines, and travelled beyond the text, beyond obsequious obedience of the supposed ‘intent of the framers’.
