Constitution-Maker

Constitution-Maker PDF Author: Sir Ivor Jennings
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110709111X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The collected documents of Sir Ivor Jennings (1903-65), an influential international advisor on constitutional questions during the era of decolonisation.

Constitution-Maker

Constitution-Maker PDF Author: Sir Ivor Jennings
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110709111X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The collected documents of Sir Ivor Jennings (1903-65), an influential international advisor on constitutional questions during the era of decolonisation.

Women as Constitution-Makers

Women as Constitution-Makers PDF Author: Ruth Rubio-Marín
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108653367
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
That a constitution should express the will of 'the people' is a long-standing principle, but the identity of 'the people' has historically been narrow. Women, in particular, were not included. A shift, however, has recently occurred. Women's participation in constitution-making is now recognised as a democratic right. Women's demands to have their voices heard in both the processes of constitution-making and the text of their country's constitution, are gaining recognition. Campaigning for inclusion in their country's constitution-making, women have adopted innovative strategies to express their constitutional aspirations. This collection offers, for the first time, comprehensive case studies of women's campaigns for constitutional equality in nine different countries that have undergone constitutional transformations in the 'participatory era'. Against a richly-contextualised historical and political background, each charts the actions and strategies of women participants, both formal and informal, and records their successes, failures and continuing hopes for constitutional equality.

Constitution Makers on Constitution Making

Constitution Makers on Constitution Making PDF Author: Robert A. Goldwin
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Eighty new constitutions, more than half of the written national constitutions in effect, have been written and adopted just since 1974, an average of more than five a year. At a time when the United States is observing the two-hundredth anniversary of its Constitution, the median age of all constitutions in the world is less than fifteen years. Never before have so many living constitution makers, in so many different kinds of regimes, been still active and capable of telling the story, firsthand, of how their nation's constitution was made. In eight pairs of papers, written from differing perspectivies, this book tells the story of the writing of the constitutions of France, Greece, the United States, Yugoslavia, Spain, Egypt, Venezuela, and Nigeria. It also includes an analysis by constitutional experts from twenty countries of how to put into practice the principles of constitutionalism--political liberty, security of rights, and self-government.

India’s Founding Moment

India’s Founding Moment PDF Author: Madhav Khosla
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980875
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
An Economist Best Book of the Year How India’s Constitution came into being and instituted democracy after independence from British rule. Britain’s justification for colonial rule in India stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. And the empire did its best to ensure this was the case, impoverishing Indian subjects and doing little to improve their socioeconomic reality. So when independence came, the cultivation of democratic citizenship was a foremost challenge. Madhav Khosla explores the means India’s founders used to foster a democratic ethos. They knew the people would need to learn ways of citizenship, but the path to education did not lie in rule by a superior class of men, as the British insisted. Rather, it rested on the creation of a self-sustaining politics. The makers of the Indian Constitution instituted universal suffrage amid poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. They crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable 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 characterized by low levels of economic growth and education, where voting populations are deeply divided by race, religion, and ethnicity. And these countries have democratized at once, not gradually. The events and ideas of India’s Founding Moment offer a natural reference point for these nations where democracy and constitutionalism have arrived simultaneously, and they remind us of the promise and challenge of self-rule today.

Founding Moments in Constitutionalism

Founding Moments in Constitutionalism PDF Author: Richard Albert
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509930981
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Founding moments are landmark events that break ties with the ancien régime and lay the foundation for the establishment of a new constitutional order. They are often radically disruptive episodes in the life of a state. They reshape national law, reset political relationships, establish future power structures, and influence happenings in neighbouring countries. This edited collection brings together leading and emerging scholars to theorise the phenomenon of a founding moment. What is a founding moment? When does the 'founding' process begin and when does it end? Is a founding moment possible without yielding a new constitution? Can a founding moment lead to a partial or incomplete transformation? And should the state be guided by the intentions of those who orchestrated these momentous breaks from the past? Drawing from constitutions around the world, the authors ask these and other fundamental questions about making and remaking constitutions.

Constitution Making as an Instrument of Democratic Transition

Constitution Making as an Instrument of Democratic Transition PDF Author: European Commission for Democracy through Law
Publisher: Council of Europe
ISBN: 9789287124166
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
Of the discussion.

The Constitution's Penman

The Constitution's Penman PDF Author: Dennis C. Rasmussen
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700634142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Strikingly few Americans know who wrote the Constitution. Even fewer know that he was a peg-legged ladies’ man with a wicked sense of humor, a staunch opponent of slavery, and an unabashed elitist. Gouverneur Morris, who has been described as “the most colorful man in North America” at the time of the founding, was a dominant figure at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. In fact, he spoke more often, proposed more motions, and had more motions adopted than any other delegate. He also put the Constitution into its final form, choosing the arrangement and much of the wording of its provisions, not to mention composing the famous preamble (“We the People of the United States . . .”) nearly from scratch. The Constitution’s Penman is the first book to explore the constitutional vision of this fascinating, neglected, and influential American. As Dennis Rasmussen deftly shows, some aspects of Morris’s political thought were intriguingly idiosyncratic, such as his argument that the Senate should be an aristocratic body whose members would serve life terms without pay. Other aspects of his vision for America’s constitutional order, however, were astoundingly prescient. Morris saw as clearly as any of the framers the need for a powerful executive with a popular mandate, the central role that parties would play in American politics, and the unfathomable evils that slavery would visit on American life. Rasmussen demonstrates that it is impossible to fully understand the Constitution without appreciating the central role that Morris played in shaping it.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law PDF Author: Michel Rosenfeld
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191640174
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1981

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Book Description
The field of comparative constitutional law has grown immensely over the past couple of decades. Once a minor and obscure adjunct to the field of domestic constitutional law, comparative constitutional law has now moved front and centre. Driven by the global spread of democratic government and the expansion of international human rights law, the prominence and visibility of the field, among judges, politicians, and scholars has grown exponentially. Even in the United States, where domestic constitutional exclusivism has traditionally held a firm grip, use of comparative constitutional materials has become the subject of a lively and much publicized controversy among various justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The trend towards harmonization and international borrowing has been controversial. Whereas it seems fair to assume that there ought to be great convergence among industrialized democracies over the uses and functions of commercial contracts, that seems far from the case in constitutional law. Can a parliamentary democracy be compared to a presidential one? A federal republic to a unitary one? Moreover, what about differences in ideology or national identity? Can constitutional rights deployed in a libertarian context be profitably compared to those at work in a social welfare context? Is it perilous to compare minority rights in a multi-ethnic state to those in its ethnically homogeneous counterparts? These controversies form the background to the field of comparative constitutional law, challenging not only legal scholars, but also those in other fields, such as philosophy and political theory. Providing the first single-volume, comprehensive reference resource, the 'Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law' will be an essential road map to the field for all those working within it, or encountering it for the first time. Leading experts in the field examine the history and methodology of the discipline, the central concepts of constitutional law, constitutional processes, and institutions - from legislative reform to judicial interpretation, rights, and emerging trends.

State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 2

State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 2 PDF Author: Frank P. Grad
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791466483
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Identifies problems reformers face in drafting or amending state constitutions.

Constitutional Democracy

Constitutional Democracy PDF Author: János Kis
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 615505388X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Constitutional democracy addresses the widely held belief that liberal democracy embodies an uneasy compromise of incompatible values: those of liberal rights on the one hand, and democratic equality on the other. Liberalism is said to compromise democracy, while democracy is said to endanger the values of liberalism. It is these theses that János Kis examines and tries to refute. Making the assumption that the alleged conflict is to be resolved at the level of institutions, he outlines a new theory of constitutional democracy. A wide range of problems encountered in constitutional democracy are discussed, such as the popular vote, popular sovereignty, and non-elected justices. The volume is composed of three parts. Part One, "Public Good and Civic Virtue", revisits the debate between liberals and democrats on how to interpret the democratic vote. In Part Two, "Liberal Democracy", the author proves that on the level of principles there is no incompatibility between liberalism and democracy and that liberal theory can demonstrate that democratic values follow from fundamental liberal values. In Part Three, "Constitutional Adjudication in a Democracy", the compatibility of democracy and judicial or constitutional review is analyzed and a theory of constitutionalism is outlined. This volume appeals to scholars in political philosophy, political science, and constitutional law, but is also recommended to all those interested in liberal and democratic theory, and the transition to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe.