The value of feminist legal methods in adjudicating women’s issues: a critical comparison of two judicial approaches from India

Chaudhary, Shraddha (2024) The value of feminist legal methods in adjudicating women’s issues: a critical comparison of two judicial approaches from India. Indian Law Review, 8 (1). pp. 66-91. ISSN 2473-0580

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Abstract

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.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Feminist legal methods | Feminist legal theory | Feminist jurisprudence | Abortion | Marital rape | Embodied experiences | Women’s rights
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Social Sciences (General)
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Law and Legal Studies
JGU School/Centre: Jindal Global Law School
Depositing User: Subhajit Bhattacharjee
Date Deposited: 21 Mar 2024 09:20
Last Modified: 13 Nov 2024 13:57
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/24730580.2024.2332821
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/7506

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