This course is an exploration of the category of the “special” law in crime. It traces the twin categories of the general and the specific within the law of crimes, and how they have traditionally been understood. Further, the course is an invitation for students to reflect on the ways in which the common conceptualisation of special criminal laws is tied to the ideas of the “exception” and the “emergency” in legal systems. Western legal thought, particularly post 9-11, has re-emphasised these categories while analysing the “War on Terror” led by the USA.

The course will attempt to locate the assumptions that underlie this conception of the special criminal law. Here, students will reconsider the liberal framework underlying modern criminal law, possibly understanding it as a non-universal idea. The course will study how paradigms of legality and the ‘rule of law’, that have traditionally served this liberal understanding operate differently when the legal histories of colonisation and the creation of ‘order’ through foreign rule are considered. The course therefore asks the student to evaluate the effectiveness of using these paradigms to analyse criminal law, and particularly of special criminal law in India.

The deconstruction of the ‘rule of law’ as a framework of analysis necessarily leads us to a critical perspective on the use of constitutionalism and legalism as ways of measuring the normative merit of special criminal laws. This, in turn, also uncovers some of the reasons behind the persistence of the special law in the Indian constitutional scheme. We see how the use of legality, with its

associated matrices of proportionality, balancing, misuse etc. has affected the ways in which these laws have been traditionally evaluated. Students are asked to reflect on whether this has also contributed to the current position of these laws in India, described by Baxi as an “interlock” with the general, rendering the use of the “emergency” and “exception” paradigms unnecessary. Finally, the course explores how criminal law, and special criminal law in particular, frames the ideas of personhood and citizenship, and therefore, the idea of the nation state itself.

The course is designed to be intensive, and relies on students reading in advance for classes. The readings are meant to serve as points of critical reflection and further discussion during classes.

Readings will not be summarised in class. Therefore, reading in advance is non-negotiable, and students will be evaluated on class participation on that basis.