Author: Mark Kozlowski
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814747957
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
Featuring a foreword by Anthony Lewis, this book evaluates the role of the court system in our democracy and considers the claims that it has become too powerful.
Author: David J. Siemers
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826274218
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
The idea that the three branches of U.S. government are equal in power is taught in classrooms, proclaimed by politicians, and referenced in the media. But, as David Siemers shows, that idea is a myth, neither intended by the Founders nor true in practice. Siemers explains how adherence to this myth normalizes a politics of gridlock, in which the action of any branch can be checked by the reaction of any other. The Founders, however, envisioned a separation of functions rather than a separation of powers. Siemers argues that this view needs to replace our current view, so that the goals set out in the Constitution’s Preamble may be better achieved.
Author: Donald E. Abelson
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773524354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
In this collection the authors challenge the "myth of the sacred" - the idea that certain aspects of the constitutional process - judicial political behaviour, interest group politics, and centralization of power - are untouchable politically. They suggest that certain actors and institutions have contributed to a myth about the normative basis of Canadian constitutional politics, a myth perpetuated through the popular media as well as much of the scholarly literature. Such actors often disguise their overtly political behavior with a cloak of impartiality, presenting their actions as furthering the public good and therefore immune to challenge. The Myth of the Sacred seeks to challenge this ideal. At its core this myth embodies the Trudeauian ideal of Canadian society - one that features a constitution that empowers impartial judges at the expense of politically motivated legislators; one that allows each individual to enjoy a uniform range of rights, freedoms, and means of belonging to the larger Canadian society; and one that seeks to ensure the primacy of the national government rather than the provincial. Trudeau called his vision the Just Society. But justice is an illusive and amorphous concept. Defining it, much less institutionalizing it, is fraught with risk. In modern liberal democracies, justice is typically understood as the product of some mix of liberty and equality, process and substance, with the amount of each component varying according to taste. It is not unusual for political actors to seek to institutionalize their own formulas for justice, but it is also not reasonable to expect these formulas to go unchallenged. Such a challenge represents the dominant theme of this volume. Contributors include Donald E. Abelson, Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Patrick James, James B. Kelly (Brock University), Michael Lusztig, Christopher P. Manfredi (McGill University), Hudson Meadwell (McGill University), Anthony A. Peacock (Utah State University), Mark Rush (Washington and Lee University), and Shannon I. Smithey (Kent State University).
Author: Anthony D. Bartl
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666947105
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
Constitutionalism and Liberty: Essays in Honor of David K. Nichols explores the relationship between liberty and constitutionalism in American politics and political theory, and is organized around the question of how human liberty is preserved and advanced while empowering government to have the necessary authority to effectively govern society. The essays themselves are divided into three areas reflecting the breadth and diversity of David K. Nichols’s scholarship. The first assesses how we should understand separation of powers and checks and balances in the American constitutional system. The second area treats different aspects of American legal practice and jurisprudence, including the powers and role of the American judiciary philosophically and institutionally as well as questions of administrative power, civil rights, parental rights, and symbolic speech. The final section examines a range of issues in political philosophy and theory, including two chapters on the intersection of political theory with literature and art. The array of subjects covered by these chapters is a testament to the broad influence of Nichols’ teaching and scholarship, and to the widening interest in aspects of American politics, constitutional law, and political theory that cross traditional barriers in political science.
Author: Raoul Berger
Publisher: Studies in Jurisprudence and L
ISBN: 9780865971448
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
It is Berger's theory that the United States Supreme Court has embarked on "a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation," thereby subverting America's democratic institutions and wreaking havoc upon Americans' social and political lives. Raoul Berger (1901-2000) was Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History, Harvard University. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.
Author: Matthew J. Franck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
"Franck's reexamination of the place of natural law in the early Supreme Court is fresh, illuminating, and long overdue. His scholarship is incisive and profound; and the exegeses of early Supreme Court opinions are often brilliant". -- Robert L. Clinton, author of Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review.
Author: David M. O'Brien
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700625186
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Brown v. Board of Education is widely recognized as one of the US Supreme Court's most important decisions in the twentieth century. Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice on the case, is generally considered one of the Court's most gifted writers. Though much has been written about Brown, citing the writing and remarks of the justices who participated in the 1954 decision, comparatively little has been said about Jackson or his unpublished opinion, which is sometimes even mistakenly taken as a dissenting opinion. This book visits Brown v. Board of Education from Jackson's perspective and, in doing so, offers a reinterpretation of the justice's thinking, and of the Supreme Court's decision making, in a ruling that continues to reverberate through the nation's politics and public life. Weaving together judicial biography, legal history, and judicial politics, Justice Robert H. Jackson's Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board provides a nuanced look at constitutional interpretation, and the intersection of law and politics, from inside the mind of a justice, within the context of a Court deciding a seminal case. Through an analysis of six drafts of Jackson's unpublished concurring opinion, David M. O'Brien explores the justice's evolving thoughts on relevant issues at critical moments in the case. His retelling of Brown presents a new view of longstanding arguments confronted by Jackson and the other justices over “original intent” versus a “living Constitution,” the role of the Court, and social change and justice in American political life. The book includes the final draft of Jackson's unpublished opinion, as well as the Warren Court's opinions in Brown and in Bolling v. Sharpe, for comparison, along with a timeline of developments and decision making leading to the Court's landmark ruling.
Author: Brian Z. Tamanaha
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139459228
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
The contemporary US legal culture is marked by ubiquitous battles among various groups attempting to seize control of the law and wield it against others in pursuit of their particular agenda. This battle takes place in administrative, legislative, and judicial arenas at both the state and federal levels. This book identifies the underlying source of these battles in the spread of the instrumental view of law - the idea that law is purely a means to an end - in a context of sharp disagreement over the social good. It traces the rise of the instrumental view of law in the course of the past two centuries, then demonstrates the pervasiveness of this view of law and its implications within the contemporary legal culture, and ends by showing the various ways in which seeing law in purely instrumental terms threatens to corrode the rule of law.
Author: Christian Lerat
Publisher: Presses Univ de Bordeaux
ISBN: 9782867810671
Category : Courts
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
Author: Kermit L. Hall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195309171
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 630
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Book Description
Presents a collection of essays that provide an examination of the judicial branch of the American government, including its history, its imapct, and its future.
