Judging Statutes

Judging Statutes PDF Author: Robert A. Katzmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199362149
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In an ideal world, the laws of Congress--known as federal statutes--would always be clearly worded and easily understood by the judges tasked with interpreting them. But many laws feature ambiguous or even contradictory wording. How, then, should judges divine their meaning? Should they stick only to the text? To what degree, if any, should they consult aids beyond the statutes themselves? Are the purposes of lawmakers in writing law relevant? Some judges, such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, believe courts should look to the language of the statute and virtually nothing else. Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit respectfully disagrees. In Judging Statutes, Katzmann, who is a trained political scientist as well as a judge, argues that our constitutional system charges Congress with enacting laws; therefore, how Congress makes its purposes known through both the laws themselves and reliable accompanying materials should be respected. He looks at how the American government works, including how laws come to be and how various agencies construe legislation. He then explains the judicial process of interpreting and applying these laws through the demonstration of two interpretative approaches, purposivism (focusing on the purpose of a law) and textualism (focusing solely on the text of the written law). Katzmann draws from his experience to show how this process plays out in the real world, and concludes with some suggestions to promote understanding between the courts and Congress. When courts interpret the laws of Congress, they should be mindful of how Congress actually functions, how lawmakers signal the meaning of statutes, and what those legislators expect of courts construing their laws. The legislative record behind a law is in truth part of its foundation, and therefore merits consideration.

Judging Statutes

Judging Statutes PDF Author: Robert A. Katzmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199362149
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
In an ideal world, the laws of Congress--known as federal statutes--would always be clearly worded and easily understood by the judges tasked with interpreting them. But many laws feature ambiguous or even contradictory wording. How, then, should judges divine their meaning? Should they stick only to the text? To what degree, if any, should they consult aids beyond the statutes themselves? Are the purposes of lawmakers in writing law relevant? Some judges, such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, believe courts should look to the language of the statute and virtually nothing else. Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit respectfully disagrees. In Judging Statutes, Katzmann, who is a trained political scientist as well as a judge, argues that our constitutional system charges Congress with enacting laws; therefore, how Congress makes its purposes known through both the laws themselves and reliable accompanying materials should be respected. He looks at how the American government works, including how laws come to be and how various agencies construe legislation. He then explains the judicial process of interpreting and applying these laws through the demonstration of two interpretative approaches, purposivism (focusing on the purpose of a law) and textualism (focusing solely on the text of the written law). Katzmann draws from his experience to show how this process plays out in the real world, and concludes with some suggestions to promote understanding between the courts and Congress. When courts interpret the laws of Congress, they should be mindful of how Congress actually functions, how lawmakers signal the meaning of statutes, and what those legislators expect of courts construing their laws. The legislative record behind a law is in truth part of its foundation, and therefore merits consideration.

Ambiguity in the Rule of Law

Ambiguity in the Rule of Law PDF Author: Vandamme
Publisher: Europa Law Pub Netherlands
ISBN: 9789076871325
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, 1762-1834, is the auctor intellectualis of the Dutch Kingdom's first Constitution (1814). To his honour, the G.K. van Hogendorp Centre was founded in 1996 to promote research and teaching of European constitutional studies, thereby combining the disciplines of European and comparative constitutional law as well as legal and political theory. The Centre is supported by the faculties of Humanities and Law of the University of Amsterdam and by the European Union through the Jean Monnet project. The Hogendorp Centre hosts yearly international conferences on various topics, such as EMU (1997), Flexibility (1998), Ambiguity in the Rule of Law (1999), Europe's Constitution (2000) and Direct Effect (2001). From 2000 the publication of their proceedings is in the hands of Europa Law Publishing. Ambiguity in the Rule of Law was the theme of a colloquium organized by the Hogendorp Centre for European Constitutional Studies in Amsterdam in 1999. The discussion centered around the assumption that enhancing the Rule of Law at the international plane, e.g. by creating law-making and judicial bodies there, often affects the Rule of Law at the domestic plane. Particularly, within national states it would lead to a shift of authority away from the legislature to the executive. Several speakers from The Netherlands, Belgium, The United Kingdom, France and Germany tackled the theme from different angles, expressing thoughts not only on the dangers, but also on the positive effects of increasing international lawmaking on the Rule of Law.

Ambiguity in the Rule of Law

Ambiguity in the Rule of Law PDF Author: G.K. van Hogendorp Centre for European Constitutional Studies
Publisher: ISBS
ISBN: 9789076871059
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Ambiguity in the Rule of Law was the theme of a colloquium organized by the Hogendorp Centre for European Constitutional Studies in Amsterdam in 1999. The discussion centered around the assumption that enhancing the Rule of Law at the international plane, e.g. by creating law-making and judicial bodies there, often affects the Rule of Law at the domestic plane. Particularly, within national states it would lead to a shift of authority away from the legislature to the executive. Several speakers from The Netherlands, Belgium, The United Kingdom, France and Germany tackled the theme from different angles, expressing thoughts not only on the dangers, but also on the positive effects of increasing international lawmaking on the Rule of Law.

Sources of Law, Legal Change, and Ambiguity

Sources of Law, Legal Change, and Ambiguity PDF Author: Alan Watson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788692009624
Category : Sociological jurisprudence
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


Reading Law

Reading Law PDF Author: Antonin Scalia
Publisher: West Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780314275554
Category : Judicial process
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Scalia and Garner systematically explain all the most important principles of constitutional, statutory, and contractual interpretation in an engaging and informative style with hundreds of illustrations from actual cases. Is a burrito a sandwich? Is a corporation entitled to personal privacy? If you trade a gun for drugs, are you using a gun in a drug transaction? The authors grapple with these and dozens of equally curious questions while explaining the most principled, lucid, and reliable techniques for deriving meaning from authoritative texts. Meanwhile, the book takes up some of the most controversial issues in modern jurisprudence. What, exactly, is textualism? Why is strict construction a bad thing? What is the true doctrine of originalism? And which is more important: the spirit of the law, or the letter? The authors write with a well-argued point of view that is definitive yet nuanced, straightforward yet sophisticated.

How Arbitration Works

How Arbitration Works PDF Author: Frank Elkouri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This treatise contains a broad array of developments in labor-management dispute resolution.

Commentaries on the Laws of England

Commentaries on the Laws of England PDF Author: William Blackstone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description


Constitutional Conscience

Constitutional Conscience PDF Author: H. Jefferson Powell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226677303
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
While many recent observers have accused American judges—especially Supreme Court justices—of being too driven by politics and ideology, others have argued that judges are justified in using their positions to advance personal views. Advocating a different approach—one that eschews ideology but still values personal perspective—H. Jefferson Powell makes a compelling case for the centrality of individual conscience in constitutional decision making. Powell argues that almost every controversial decision has more than one constitutionally defensible resolution. In such cases, he goes on to contend, the language and ideals of the Constitution require judges to decide in good faith, exercising what Powell calls the constitutional virtues: candor, intellectual honesty, humility about the limits of constitutional adjudication, and willingness to admit that they do not have all the answers. Constitutional Conscience concludes that the need for these qualities in judges—as well as lawyers and citizens—is implicit in our constitutional practices, and that without them judicial review would forfeit both its own integrity and the credibility of the courts themselves.

The Living Constitution

The Living Constitution PDF Author: David A. Strauss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199752539
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law--one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.

Authoritarian Legality in Asia

Authoritarian Legality in Asia PDF Author: Weitseng Chen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108496687
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Provides an intra-Asia comparative perspective of authoritarian legality, with a focus on formation, development, transition and post-transition stages.