Abstract
A doctrinal reassessment of the basic structure doctrine, tracing its migration from constitutional amendment review into ordinary administrative adjudication and asking whether the doctrine retains determinate content.
The basic structure doctrine has outlived the political emergency that produced it. What began as a constraint on the amending power now surfaces in disputes over statutory delegation, tribunal composition and federal transfers.
This article argues that the doctrine's expansion has come at the cost of determinacy. Where the early cases identified a small set of features by reference to constitutional text and structure, later benches have located the doctrine in atmospheric appeals to constitutional morality.
Part III proposes a two-stage test: identification of the feature by textual anchorage, followed by a proportionality inquiry into the degree of abrogation. The test is applied to three recent decisions to show that it yields narrower and more predictable outcomes.