Download or read book The Transformative Constitution written by Gautam Bhatia and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: | Shortlisted for the Tata Literature Live Non-fiction Book of the Year Award and Hindu Prize for Non-fiction | We think of the Indian Constitution as a founding document, embodying a moment of profound transformation from being ruled to becoming a nation of free and equal citizenship. Yet the working of the Constitution over the last seven decades has often failed to fulfil that transformative promise.Not only have successive Parliaments failed to repeal colonial-era laws that are inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution, but constitutional challenges to these laws have also failed before the courts. Indeed, in numerous cases, the Supreme Court has used colonial-era laws to cut down or weaken the fundamental rights. The Transformative Constitution by Gautam Bhatia draws on pre-Independence legal and political history to argue that the Constitution was intended to transform not merely the political status of Indians from subjects to citizens, but also the social relationships on which legal and political structures rested. He advances a novel vision of the Constitution, and of constitutional interpretation, which is faithful to its text, structure and history, and above all to its overarching commitment to political and social transformation.
Download or read book Socio economic Rights written by Sandra Liebenberg and published by Juta and Company Ltd. This book was released on 2010 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, this scholarly work provides an in-depth and thorough analysis of the socio-economic rights jurisprudence of the newly democratic South Africa. The book explores how the judicial interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights can be more responsive to the conditions of systemic poverty and inequality characterising South African society. Based on meticulous research, the work marries legal analysis with perspectives from political philosophy and democratic theory.
Download or read book Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America written by Armin von Bogdandy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking collection of essays outlines and explains the unique development of Latin American jurisprudence. It introduces the idea of the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL), an original Latin American path of transformative constitutionalism, to an Anglophone audience for the first time. It charts the key developments that have transformed the region and assesses the success of the constitutional projects that followed a period of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Coined by scholars who have been documenting, conceptualizing, and comparing the development of Latin American public law for more than a decade, the term ICCAL encompasses themes that cross national borders and legal fields, taking in constitutional law, administrative law, general public international law, regional integration law, human rights, and investment law. Not only does this volume map the legal landscape, it also suggests measures to improve society via due legal process and a rights-based, supranational and regionally rooted constitutionalism. The editors contend that with the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, common problems such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population from having a say in government, as well as corruption, hyper-presidentialism, and the weak normativity of the law can be combatted more effectively in future.
Download or read book Global Gender Constitutionalism and Women s Citizenship written by Ruth Rubio-Marin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-06 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considers whether and how constitutions have affirmed women's equal citizenship status, from the birth of constitutionalism to the present.
Download or read book A People s Constitution written by Rohit De and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been contended that the Indian Constitution of 1950, a document in English created by elite consensus, has had little influence on India’s greater population. Drawing upon the previously unexplored records of the Supreme Court of India, A People’s Constitution upends this narrative and shows how the Constitution actually transformed the daily lives of citizens in profound and lasting ways. This remarkable legal process was led by individuals on the margins of society, and Rohit De looks at how drinkers, smugglers, petty vendors, butchers, and prostitutes—all despised minorities—shaped the constitutional culture. The Constitution came alive in the popular imagination so much that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, took recourse to it, and argued with it. Focusing on the use of constitutional remedies by citizens against new state regulations seeking to reshape the society and economy, De illustrates how laws and policies were frequently undone or renegotiated from below using the state’s own procedures. De examines four important cases that set legal precedents: a Parsi journalist’s contestation of new alcohol prohibition laws, Marwari petty traders’ challenge to the system of commodity control, Muslim butchers’ petition against cow protection laws, and sex workers’ battle to protect their right to practice prostitution. Exploring how the Indian Constitution of 1950 enfranchised the largest population in the world, A People’s Constitution considers the ways that ordinary citizens produced, through litigation, alternative ethical models of citizenship.
Download or read book Rights and Democracy written by Henk Botha and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelve essays in this book pay tribute to senior Harvard law professor Frank Michelman whose thinking ? and input ? on Constitutional Law has made a great contribution to constitutional development in South Africa. These essays are the work of some of the best practical and academic legal minds in this country and, given South Africa?s recent successes in this field, represent an advanced position in constitutional thinking in the world.
Download or read book India s Founding Moment written by Madhav Khosla and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--
Download or read book Transformative Constitutionalism written by Oscar Vilhena and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism written by Jennifer Nedelsky and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-06-15 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federalists vision of the Constitution; an interdisciplinary investigation.
Download or read book Constitutional Democracy and Judicial Supremacy written by Jerome C. Foss and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The best books on politics offer us fresh insight into the way things are, and powerful arguments about how things ought to be. Jerome Foss's superb book accomplishes both of these ends, rescuing John Rawls's work from the dusty corners of overly abstract theorizing by emphasizing Rawls's dedication to a very practical reinvention of the American political experiment. This approach has the virtue not only of according with Rawls's mature interpretation of his work, but also of setting up a lively contrast between the constitutional republicanism of the framers and Rawls's constitutional democracy. This book is a trustworthy guide to the American constitutional tradition as well as Rawls's innovative alternative, offering a respectful treatment of the latter while providing an engaging and persuasive defense of the former." -Micah J. Watson, William Spoelhof Teacher-Scholar Chair in Political Science, Calvin College "Foss's careful study of the transformative intention of Rawls's political theory brings extraordinary insights to our academic debates, and to the real causes of our polarized, dysfunctional politics. The analysis of Rawls's pragmatism reveals its breathtaking goal to elevate progressive-liberal judges as epitomes of public reason, seeking to construct a rationalist, egalitarian-minded democracy to replace the framers' complex republicanism. Rawls has partially succeeded; we increasingly are ruled by living judicialism rather than the rule of law, under novel power wielded by federal courts, law professors, and lawyers. Foss gives Rawls a fair hearing, but insists we confront the arbitrary and utopian bases of this radical project, and the costs of elevating equality and constructed theory at the expense of liberty, self-government, and natural rights. Those who care about the fate of constitutional self-government, and whether utopian theories produce sustainable polities or political-social disorder, must confront this book." -Paul Carrese, Professor of Political Science, U.S. Air Force Academy
Download or read book We the People written by Bruce Ackerman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-15 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first, as Bruce Ackerman makes clear in We the People: Transformations. The Founding Fathers, hardly the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a remarkable course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures to this day. After the bloody sacrifices of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party revolutionized the traditional system of constitutional amendment as they put principles of liberty and equality into higher law. Another wrenching transformation occurred during the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers vindicated a new vision of activist government against an assault by the Supreme Court. These are the crucial episodes in American constitutional history that Ackerman takes up in this second volume of a trilogy hailed as "one of the most important contributions to American constitutional thought in the last half-century" (Cass Sunstein, New Republic). In each case he shows how the American people--whether led by the Founding Federalists or the Lincoln Republicans or the Roosevelt Democrats--have confronted the Constitution in its moments of great crisis with dramatic acts of upheaval, always in the name of popular sovereignty. A thoroughly new way of understanding constitutional development, We the People: Transformations reveals how America's "dualist democracy" provides for these populist upheavals that amend the Constitution, often without formalities. The book also sets contemporary events, such as the Reagan Revolution and Roe v. Wade, in deeper constitutional perspective. In this context Ackerman exposes basic constitutional problems inherited from the New Deal Revolution and exacerbated by the Reagan Revolution, then considers the fundamental reforms that might resolve them. A bold challenge to formalist and fundamentalist views, this volume demonstrates that ongoing struggle over America's national identity, rather than consensus, marks its constitutional history.
Download or read book Rights and Democracy in a Transformative Constitution written by Henk Botha and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Towards Juristocracy written by Ran Hirschl and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In countries and supranational entities around the globe, constitutional reform has transferred an unprecedented amount of power from representative institutions to judiciaries. The constitutionalization of rights and the establishment of judicial review are widely believed to have benevolent and progressive origins, and significant redistributive, power-diffusing consequences. Ran Hirschl challenges this conventional wisdom. Drawing upon a comprehensive comparative inquiry into the political origins and legal consequences of the recent constitutional revolutions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa, Hirschl shows that the trend toward constitutionalization is hardly driven by politicians' genuine commitment to democracy, social justice, or universal rights. Rather, it is best understood as the product of a strategic interplay among hegemonic yet threatened political elites, influential economic stakeholders, and judicial leaders. This self-interested coalition of legal innovators determines the timing, extent, and nature of constitutional reforms. Hirschl demonstrates that whereas judicial empowerment through constitutionalization has a limited impact on advancing progressive notions of distributive justice, it has a transformative effect on political discourse. The global trend toward juristocracy, Hirschl argues, is part of a broader process whereby political and economic elites, while they profess support for democracy and sustained development, attempt to insulate policymaking from the vicissitudes of democratic politics.
Download or read book From Parchment to Practice written by Tom Ginsburg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asks how the 'parchment' promises of a written constitution are translated into political practice, working through the many problems of constitutional implementation after adoption.
Download or read book Comparative Constitutional Law written by Mark S. Kende and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein has said that South Africa has "the most admirable constitution in the history of the world." This comparative constitutional law casebook is unique because it allows students and experts in U.S. constitutional law (or other nations) to compare their approach with modern South African constitutionalism. The transformative and progressive South African Constitution adopts the most successful parts of existing parliamentary constitutions, while honoring the nation's African heritage. Further, it incorporates numerous international human rights such as socio-economic and environmental rights. The book's South African focus guarantees readers will grasp the contingency and social context of a foreign constitutional court's decisions, rather than primarily surveying cases from numerous other nations. Yet the introductory chapter also provides background on South Africa, and then exposes readers to key theoretical questions about comparativism. Moreover, that chapter briefly describes seven other constitutional democracies where the courts play important but different roles than in South Africa. These nations provide further context for the strong judicial review exercised by the South African Constitutional Court. Indeed, excerpts from that Court's decisions make up most of the core second chapter. The core chapter also contains questions about the reasoning of each South African case, as well as how that case compares to a single foreign case on the same topic. The book is suitable for law students, as well as other graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, the book is the first condensed version of South African constitutional case law published in the U.S. Thus, it functions as a research collection for experts, as well as a casebook.
Download or read book The Law of Political Economy written by Poul F. Kjaer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Political economy themes have - directly and indirectly - been a central concern of law and legal scholarship ever since political economy emerged as a concept in the early seventeenth century, a development which was re-inforced by the emergence of political economy as an independent area of scholarly enquiry in the eighteenth century, as developed by the French physiocrats. This is not surprising in so far as the core institutions of the economy and economic exchanges, such as property and contract, are legal institutions.In spite of this intrinsic link, political economy discourses and legal discourses dealing with political economy themes unfold in a largely separate manner. Indeed, this book is also a reflection of this, in so far as its core concern is how the law and legal scholarship conceive of and approach political economy issues"--
Download or read book Keeping Faith with the Constitution written by Goodwin Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.
