Course Description:

Legal texts are central to the way in which the State translates public policy into action. This course aims to equip future public policy scholars and practitioners with the foundational skills of reading and applying statutes, judgments and administrative materials as it pertains to their work of understanding, shaping, or navigating the public policy landscape.

While the ‘rule of law’ expects that clearly articulated legal commands are understood and followed by citizens, the development of the body of law has clearly diverged from this goal. There is an expectation that laws must be obeyed in a person’s personal and professional capacity, and simultaneously a realisation that laws are too complex for someone who lacks training. Especially for a public policy professional, laws sit at the crucial juncture between State policy and State command. It is thus essential that public policy practitioners do not solely rely on others (often equally untrained commentators) to understand the meaning of a legal text.

Conscious of the diverse academic background of the cohort, this course will begin with a basic introduction to law and legal systems, as well as core legal concepts. The students will be familiarised with the institutional structures of the Indian legal system, its processes, and sources of law. We will then move to the legal methods and reasoning, and learn the techniques of reading and working with the formal sources of law and other legal materials. Before rounding up the course with a foray into the relationship between law and society, we will discuss certain core concepts in Administrative Law that are essential for public policy scholars and practitioners engaging with the administrative and regulatory state.

While traditional lawyering approaches the law from a detailed ‘is’ perspective (i.e. what is the law), public policy asks the ‘ought’ questions (i.e. what the law should be). Introduction to legal texts for public policy students should therefore have the element of appraisal, rather than argument in its approach. Keeping this in mind, the course will explore the legal structures and techniques of interpretation through the lens of select contemporary public policy issues that are being mediated chiefly through laws and courts.