ABSTRACT
This investigation is motivated by a simple question, namely: When are courts relevant to poor and marginalised people's struggle to hetter their life prospects? Poverty reduction and promotion of social rights are usually seen as matters of policy and not legal adjudication. The conventional wisdom is that the law and the courts favour the powerfill and vested interests in society, and it is not difficult to [md examples to substantiate this. Yet, in recent years, poor groups in different parts of the world have chosen to fight for their social rights in court, and have in some cases won important legal victories - as illustrated by the oft-cited cases from the Indian Supreme Court and the South African Constitutional Court.2 We know that legal systems respond very differently to the concems of poor people - hut what accounts for the difference? Why do some courts, at certain times, fimction as agents of social transformation and inclusion of marginalised groups? Why do poor groups in some cases turn to the legal system rather than opting for other forms of political mobilisation? What are the explanatory factors? Current knowledge in this field is too thin and fragmented to provide reliable answers. Systematic comparative investigations may help us to understand which factors - and constellations of factors - are most crucial for whether courts are socially conservative or serve as agents and arenas of social change. The conceptual framework outlined here aims to facilitate such analyses by identifying various categories of explanatory variables and clarifying the relationship between them. Some of these variables are aspects of the legal systems, some relate to the sociopolitical contexts in which the courts operate, while others have regard to the ability and resources of poor and marginalised groups themselves.
