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Rules unconstitutional. This is because, by design,
surveillance - which operates in secret - curtails the
operation of Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution, as a
person who suspects that she is under surveillance, in
many cases will have no way of proving it, and cannot
therefore establish a breach in accordance with Articles 32
and 226, until that information is revealed. The effective
exclusion of Articles 32 and 226 therefore entails that, for
all practical purposes, the decision of the Executive on
whether fundamental rights have been validly and
reasonably infringed, is final. It is respectfully submitted
that this violates the requirements of fairness and due
process under Article 21, as well as the broader
requirements of natural justice. For these reasons, the
absence
of
any
judicial/parliamentary/independent
oversight of the decision taken by the Review Committee
renders the relevant Rules unconstitutional.
XVII.
BECAUSE, further, the denial of judicial scrutiny
amounts to an effective denial of remedies under Article
21 of the Constitution. An individual under surveillance,
by design, does not know that she is being surveiled, and
cannot therefore challenge it as wrongful or illegal. In the
absence of a judicial determination that surveillance meets
the proportionality standards under Article 21, the lack of
ability to approach the courts effectively entails the denial
of the right itself. In other words, the very fact that, in a
large number of cases, affected individuals will be unable
to move the Court to enforce their rights under Article 21,
requires that the infringement of those rights must be
subject to judicial scrutiny.
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