Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 23
Párrafo- Paragraph text
- Courts may contribute to strengthening benefits into legal entitlements. Following the filing of the public interest litigation Petition (Civil) No. 196/2001, People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India and Others (PUCL), the Supreme Court of India derived from the right to life mentioned in article 21 of the Constitution a series of requirements articulating how various social programmes should be expanded and implemented in order to ensure that the population is guaranteed a basic nutritional floor. This is to this date the most spectacular case of a court protecting the right to food. The Court prohibited the withdrawal of the benefits provided under existing schemes, including feeding programmes for infants, pregnant and nursing mothers and adolescent girls; midday school meal programmes; pensions for the aged; and a cash-for-work programme for the able-bodied, thus converting such benefits into legal entitlements. Moreover, the Court expanded on and strengthened existing schemes, to ensure that they provide effective protection against hunger. For instance, it ordered that school meals be locally produced and be cooked and hot, whereas in the past children were fed with dry snacks or grain, and that preference be given, in the hiring of cooks, to Dalit women; it raised the level of old-age pensions; and, consistent with the idea that the schemes implement a constitutional right, it ordered their universalization, significantly expanding the number of beneficiaries. To supervise the implementation of its orders, the Court also established two independent Commissioners to monitor the implementation of programmes fulfilling the right to food throughout the country.
- Condicón jurídica
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Organismo
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Tipo de documento
- Special Procedures' report
- Medio de adopción
- N.A.
- Temas
- Food & Nutrition
- Personas afectadas
- Adolescents
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Año
- 2013
- Tipo de párrafo
- Other
- Reference
- SR Food, Report to the UNGA (2013), A/68/288, para. 23.
- Paragraph number
- 23
ordenados por
Fecha de adición
62 conexiones, 62 Entidades