Download or read book Constitutional Politics and the Judiciary written by Kálmán Pócza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent confrontations between constitutional courts and parliamentary majorities, for example in Poland and Hungary, have attracted international interest in the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature in Central and Eastern European countries. Several political actors have argued that courts have assumed too much power after the democratic transformation process in 1989/1990. These claims are explicitly or implicitly connected to the charge that courts have constrained the room for manoeuvre of the legislatures too heavily and that they have entered the field of politics. Nevertheless, the question to what extent has this aggregation of power constrained the dominant political actors has never been examined accurately and systematically in the literature. The present volume fills this gap by applying an innovative research methodology to quantify the impact and effect of court's decisions on legislation and legislators, and measure the strength of judicial decisions in six CEE countries.
Download or read book Judicial Power written by Christine Landfried and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of national and transnational constitutional courts to issue binding rulings in interpreting the constitution or an international treaty has been endlessly discussed. What does it mean for democratic governance that non-elected judges influence politics and policies? The authors of Judicial Power - legal scholars, political scientists, and judges - take a fresh look at this problem. To date, research has concentrated on the legitimacy, or the effectiveness, or specific decision-making methods of constitutional courts. By contrast, the authors here explore the relationship among these three factors. This book presents the hypothesis that judicial review allows for a method of reflecting on social integration that differs from political methods, and, precisely because of the difference between judicial and political decision-making, strengthens democratic governance. This hypothesis is tested in case studies on the role of constitutional courts in political transformations, on the methods of these courts, and on transnational judicial interactions.
Download or read book Constitutional Politics written by Sotirios A. Barber and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to have a constitution? Scholars and students associated with Walter Murphy at Princeton University have long asked this question in their exploration of constitutional politics and judicial behavior. These scholars, concerned with the making, maintenance, and deliberate change of the Constitution, have made unique and significant contributions to our understanding of American constitutional law by going against the norm of court-centered and litigation-minded research. Beginning in the late 1970s, this new wave of academics explored questions ranging from the nature of creating the U.S. Constitution to the philosophy behind amending it. In this collection, Sotirios A. Barber and Robert P. George bring together fourteen essays by members of this Princeton group--some of the most distinguished scholars in the field. These works consider the meaning of having a constitution, the implications of particular choices in the design of constitutions, and the meaning of judicial supremacy in the interpretation of the Constitution. The overarching ambition of this collection is to awaken a constitutionalist consciousness in its readers--to view themselves as potential makers and changers of constitutions, as opposed to mere subjects of existing arrangements. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Walter F. Murphy, John E. Finn, Christopher L. Eisgruber, James E. Fleming, Jeffrey K. Tulis, Suzette Hemberger, Stephen Macedo, Sanford Levinson, H. N. Hirsch, Wayne D. Moore, Keith E. Whittington, and Mark E. Brandon.
Download or read book Courts Politics and Constitutional Law written by Martin Belov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-16 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how the judicialization of politics, and the politicization of courts, affect representative democracy, rule of law, and separation of powers. This volume critically assesses the phenomena of judicialization of politics and politicization of the judiciary. It explores the rising impact of courts on key constitutional principles, such as democracy and separation of powers, which is paralleled by increasing criticism of this influence from both liberal and illiberal perspectives. The book also addresses the challenges to rule of law as a principle, preconditioned on independent and powerful courts, which are triggered by both democratic backsliding and the mushrooming of populist constitutionalism and illiberal constitutional regimes. Presenting a wide range of case studies, the book will be a valuable resource for students and academics in constitutional law and political science seeking to understand the increasingly complex relationships between the judiciary, executive and legislature.
Download or read book Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy written by Keith E. Whittington and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should the Supreme Court have the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution? The justices on the Supreme Court certainly seem to think so--and their critics say that this position threatens democracy. But Keith Whittington argues that the Court's justices have not simply seized power and circumvented politics. The justices have had power thrust upon them--by politicians, for the benefit of politicians. In this sweeping political history of judicial supremacy in America, Whittington shows that presidents and political leaders of all stripes have worked to put the Court on a pedestal and have encouraged its justices to accept the role of ultimate interpreters of the Constitution. Whittington examines why presidents have often found judicial supremacy to be in their best interest, why they have rarely assumed responsibility for interpreting the Constitution, and why constitutional leadership has often been passed to the courts. The unprecedented assertiveness of the Rehnquist Court in striking down acts of Congress is only the most recent example of a development that began with the founding generation itself. Presidential bids for constitutional leadership have been rare, but reflect the temporary political advantage in doing so. Far more often, presidents have cooperated in increasing the Court's power and encouraging its activism. Challenging the conventional wisdom that judges have usurped democracy, Whittington shows that judicial supremacy is the product of democratic politics.
Download or read book The Political Constitution written by Greg Weiner and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who should decide what is constitutional? The Supreme Court, of course, both liberal and conservative voices say—but in a bracing critique of the “judicial engagement” that is ascendant on the legal right, Greg Weiner makes a cogent case to the contrary. His book, The Political Constitution, is an eloquent political argument for the restraint of judicial authority and the return of the proper portion of constitutional authority to the people and their elected representatives. What Weiner calls for, in short, is a reconstitution of the political commons upon which a republic stands. At the root of the word “republic” is what Romans called the res publica, or the public thing. And it is precisely this—the sense of a political community engaging in decisions about common things as a coherent whole—that Weiner fears is lost when all constitutional authority is ceded to the judiciary. His book calls instead for a form of republican constitutionalism that rests on an understanding that arguments about constitutional meaning are, ultimately, political arguments. What this requires is an enlargement of the res publica, the space allocated to political conversation and a shared pursuit of common things. Tracing the political and judicial history through which this critical political space has been impoverished, The Political Constitution seeks to recover the sense of political community on which the health of the republic, and the true working meaning of the Constitution, depends.
Download or read book Constitutional Judiciary in a New Democracy written by László Sólyom and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the decisions of the most innovative of the new constitutional courts in post Soviet Central Europe
Download or read book The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies written by Aziz Z. Huq and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book describes and explains the failure of the federal courts of the United States to act and to provide remedies to individuals whose constitutional rights have been violated by illegal state coercion and violence. This remedial vacuum must be understood in light of the original design and historical development of the federal courts. At its conception, the federal judiciary was assumed to be independent thanks to an apolitical appointment process, a limited supply of adequately trained lawyers (which would prevent cherry-picking), and the constraining effect of laws and constitutional provision. Each of these checks quickly failed. As a result, the early federal judicial system was highly dependent on Congress. Not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century did a robust federal judiciary start to emerge, and not until the first quarter of the twentieth century did it take anything like its present form. The book then charts how the pressure from Congress and the White House has continued to shape courts behaviour-first eliciting a mid-twentieth-century explosion in individual remedies, and then driving a five-decade long collapse. Judges themselves have not avidly resisted this decline, in part because of ideological reasons and in part out of institutional worries about a ballooning docket. Today, as a result of these trends, the courts are stingy with individual remedies, but aggressively enforce the so-called "structural" constitution of the separation of powers and federalism. This cocktail has highly regressive effects, and is in urgent need of reform"--
Download or read book Judgment Calls written by Daniel A. Farber and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judgement Calls tackles one of the most important and controversial legal questions in contemporary America: How should judges interpret the Constitution? Our Constitution contains a great deal of language that is vague, broad, or ambiguous, making its meaning uncertain. Many people believe this uncertainty allows judges too much discretion. They suggest that constitutional adjudication is just politics in disguise, and that judges are legislators in robes who read the Constitution in accordance with their own political views. Some think that political decision making by judges is inevitable, and others think it can be restrained by "strict constructionist" theories like textualism or originalism. But at bottom, both sorts of thinkers believe that judging has to be either tightly constrained and inflexible or purely political and unfettered: There is, they argue, no middle ground. Farber and Sherry disagree, and in this book they describe and defend that middle ground. They show how judging can be--and often is--both principled and flexible. In other words, they attempt to reconcile the democratic rule of law with the recognition that judges have discretion. They explain how judicial discretion can be exercised responsibly, describe the existing constraints that guide and cabin such discretion, and suggest improvements. In exploring how constitutional adjudication works in practice (and how it can be made better), Farber and Sherry cover a wide range of topics that are relevant to their thesis and also independently important, including judicial opinion-writing, the use of precedent, the judicial selection process, the structure of the American judiciary, and the nature of legal education. They conclude with a careful look at how the Supreme Court has treated three of the most significant and sensitive constitutional issues: terrorism, abortion, and affirmative action. Timely, trenchant, and carefully argued, Judgment Calls is a welcome addition to the literature on the intersection of constitutional interpretation and American politics.
Download or read book The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy written by John Agresto and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the growth of the power of the Supreme Court and analyzes the separation of judicial and congressional functions.
Download or read book The Birth of Judicial Politics in France written by Alec Stone Sweet and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French Constitutional Council, a quasi-judicial body created at the dawn of the Fifth Republic, functioned in relative obscurity for almost two decades until its emergence in the 1980s as a pivotal actor in the French policymaking process. Alec Stone focuses on how this once docile institution, through its practice of constitutional review, has become a meaningfully autonomous actor in the French political system. After examining the formal prohibition against judicial review in France, Stone illustrates how politicians and the Council have collaborated over the course of the last decade, often unintentionally and in the service of contradictory agendas, to significantly enhance Council's power. While the Council came to function as a third house of Parliament, the legislative work of the government and Parliament was meaningfully "juridicized." Through a discussion of broad theoretical issues, Stone then expands the scope of his analysis to the politics of constitutional review in Germany, Spain, and Austria.
Download or read book Views from the Bench written by Mark W. Cannon and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology presents the views of members of the U.S. Supreme Court and leading federal and state judges on the judicial process, the function of judges, and the role of courts in American society.
Download or read book Constitutional Politics and the Judiciary written by Kálmán Pócza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent confrontations between constitutional courts and parliamentary majorities, for example in Poland and Hungary, have attracted international interest in the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature in Central and Eastern European countries. Several political actors have argued that courts have assumed too much power after the democratic transformation process in 1989/1990. These claims are explicitly or implicitly connected to the charge that courts have constrained the room for manoeuvre of the legislatures too heavily and that they have entered the field of politics. Nevertheless, the question to what extent has this aggregation of power constrained the dominant political actors has never been examined accurately and systematically in the literature. The present volume fills this gap by applying an innovative research methodology to quantify the impact and effect of court’s decisions on legislation and legislators, and measure the strength of judicial decisions in six CEE countries.
Download or read book Judicial Politics in Mexico written by Andrea Castagnola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After more than seventy years of uninterrupted authoritarian government headed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico formally began the transition to democracy in 2000. Unlike most other new democracies in Latin America, no special Constitutional Court was set up, nor was there any designated bench of the Supreme Court for constitutional adjudication. Instead, the judiciary saw its powers expand incrementally. Under this new context inevitable questions emerged: How have the justices interpreted the constitution? What is the relation of the court with the other political institutions? How much autonomy do justices display in their decisions? Has the court considered the necessary adjustments to face the challenges of democracy? It has become essential in studying the new role of the Supreme Court to obtain a more accurate and detailed diagnosis of the performances of its justices in this new political environment. Through critical review of relevant debates and using original data sets to empirically analyze the way justices voted on the three main means of constitutional control from 2000 through 2011, leading legal scholars provide a thoughtful and much needed new interpretation of the role the judiciary plays in a country’s transition to democracy This book is designed for graduate courses in law and courts, judicial politics, comparative judicial politics, Latin American institutions, and transitions to democracy. This book will equip scholars and students with the knowledge required to understand the importance of the independence of the judiciary in the transition to democracy.
Download or read book The Constitutional Polity written by Glendon A. Schubert and published by Boston : Boston University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Judicial Review in New Democracies written by Tom Ginsburg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New democracies around the world have adopted constitutional courts to oversee the operation of democratic politics. Where does judicial power come from, how does it develop in the early stages of democratic liberalization, and what political conditions support its expansion? This book answers these questions through an examination of three constitutional courts in Asia: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. In a region that has traditionally viewed law as a tool of authoritarian rulers, constitutional courts in these three societies are becoming a real constraint on government. In contrast with conventional culturalist accounts, this book argues that the design and functioning of constitutional review are largely a function of politics and interests. Judicial review - the power of judges to rule an act of a legislature or national leader unconstitutional - is a solution to the problem of uncertainty in constitutional design. By providing insurance to prospective electoral losers, judicial review can facilitate democracy.
Download or read book The Judiciary and American Democracy written by Kenneth D. Ward and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines recent debates in constitutional theory in light of the work of Alexander Bickel.
