Author: Yaniv Roznai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198768796
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? Using theoretical and comparative approaches, Roznai establishes the nature and scope of constitutional amendment powers by focusing on substantive limitations, looking at their prevalence in practice and the conceptual coherence of the very idea of limitations to constitutional amendment powers.
Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments
Author: Yaniv Roznai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198768796
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? Using theoretical and comparative approaches, Roznai establishes the nature and scope of constitutional amendment powers by focusing on substantive limitations, looking at their prevalence in practice and the conceptual coherence of the very idea of limitations to constitutional amendment powers.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198768796
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? Using theoretical and comparative approaches, Roznai establishes the nature and scope of constitutional amendment powers by focusing on substantive limitations, looking at their prevalence in practice and the conceptual coherence of the very idea of limitations to constitutional amendment powers.
The Law and Politics of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in Asia
Author: Rehan Abeyratne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000483738
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
This book explains how the idea and practice of UCA are shaped by, and inform, constitutional politics through various social and political actors, and in both formal and informal amendment processes, across Asia. This is the first book-length study of the law and politics of unconstitutional constitutional amendments in Asia. Comprising ten case studies from across the continent, and four broader, theoretical chapters, the volume provides an interdisciplinary, comparative perspective on the rising phenomenon of unconstitutional constitutional amendments (UCA) across a range of political, legal, and institutional contexts. The volume breaks new ground by venturing beyond the courts to consider UCA not only as a judicial doctrine, but also as a significant feature of political and intellectual discourse. The book will be a valuable reference for law and political science researchers, as well as for policymakers and NGOs working in related fields. Offering broad coverage of jurisdictions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, it will be useful to scholars and practitioners within Asia as well as to those seeking to better understand the law and politics of the region.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000483738
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
This book explains how the idea and practice of UCA are shaped by, and inform, constitutional politics through various social and political actors, and in both formal and informal amendment processes, across Asia. This is the first book-length study of the law and politics of unconstitutional constitutional amendments in Asia. Comprising ten case studies from across the continent, and four broader, theoretical chapters, the volume provides an interdisciplinary, comparative perspective on the rising phenomenon of unconstitutional constitutional amendments (UCA) across a range of political, legal, and institutional contexts. The volume breaks new ground by venturing beyond the courts to consider UCA not only as a judicial doctrine, but also as a significant feature of political and intellectual discourse. The book will be a valuable reference for law and political science researchers, as well as for policymakers and NGOs working in related fields. Offering broad coverage of jurisdictions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, it will be useful to scholars and practitioners within Asia as well as to those seeking to better understand the law and politics of the region.
Constitutional Amendments
Author: Richard Albert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190640499
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. This book shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190640499
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. This book shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.
A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union
Author: Thomas McIntyre Cooley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages : 1172
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages : 1172
Book Description
Originalism and the Good Constitution
Author: John O. McGinnis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674727363
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Originalism holds that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to its meaning at the time it was enacted. In their innovative defense of originalism, John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport maintain that the text of the Constitution should be adhered to by the Supreme Court because it was enacted by supermajorities—both its original enactment under Article VII and subsequent Amendments under Article V. A text approved by supermajorities has special value in a democracy because it has unusually wide support and thus tends to maximize the welfare of the greatest number. The authors recognize and respond to many possible objections. Does originalism perpetuate the dead hand of the past? How can following the original meaning be justified, given that African Americans and women were excluded from the enactment of the Constitution in 1787 and many of its subsequent Amendments? What is originalism’s place in interpretation of the Constitution, when after two hundred years there is so much non-originalist precedent? A fascinating counterfactual they pose is this: had the Supreme Court not interpreted the Constitution so freely, perhaps the nation would have resorted to the Article V amendment process more often and with greater effect. Their book will be an important contribution to the literature on originalism, which is now the most prominent theory of constitutional interpretation.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674727363
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Originalism holds that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to its meaning at the time it was enacted. In their innovative defense of originalism, John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport maintain that the text of the Constitution should be adhered to by the Supreme Court because it was enacted by supermajorities—both its original enactment under Article VII and subsequent Amendments under Article V. A text approved by supermajorities has special value in a democracy because it has unusually wide support and thus tends to maximize the welfare of the greatest number. The authors recognize and respond to many possible objections. Does originalism perpetuate the dead hand of the past? How can following the original meaning be justified, given that African Americans and women were excluded from the enactment of the Constitution in 1787 and many of its subsequent Amendments? What is originalism’s place in interpretation of the Constitution, when after two hundred years there is so much non-originalist precedent? A fascinating counterfactual they pose is this: had the Supreme Court not interpreted the Constitution so freely, perhaps the nation would have resorted to the Article V amendment process more often and with greater effect. Their book will be an important contribution to the literature on originalism, which is now the most prominent theory of constitutional interpretation.
Constituent Power and the Law
Author: Joel I. Colón-Ríos
Publisher: Academic
ISBN: 0198785984
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Constituent power is the power to create new constitutions. Since it is frequently exercised during or after political revolutions, it has been historically associated with extra-legality and violations of the established legal order. This book examines the relationship between constituent power and the law and the place of constituent power in constitutional history, focusing on the legal and institutional implications that theorists, politicians, and judges have derived from it. Since the 18th and 19th centuries, commentators and citizens have relied on the concept of constituent power to defend the idea that electors have the right to instruct representatives, and that the creation of new constitutions must take place through extra-legislative entities, such as primary assemblies open to all citizens. More recently, several Latin American constitutions explicitly incorporate the theory of constituent power and allow citizens, acting through popular initiative, to trigger constitution-making episodes that may result in the replacement of the entire constitutional order.Constitutional courts have employed constituent power to justify their jurisdiction to invalidate constitutional amendments that alter the fundamental structure of the constitution and thus amount to a constitution-making exercise. Some governments have reverted to it to defend the legality of transforming the constitutional order through procedures not contemplated in the constitution's amendment rule, but considered participatory enough to be equivalent to "the people in action", and these attempts have sometimes been sanctioned by courts. Building on these findings, Constituent Power and the Law argues that the exercise of constituent power, unlike sovereignty, should be understood as ultimately based on a popular mandate to produce a particular type of legal content. In practice, this makes it possible for a constitution-making body to be understood as legally subject to the conditions arising from a constituent referendum.
Publisher: Academic
ISBN: 0198785984
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Constituent power is the power to create new constitutions. Since it is frequently exercised during or after political revolutions, it has been historically associated with extra-legality and violations of the established legal order. This book examines the relationship between constituent power and the law and the place of constituent power in constitutional history, focusing on the legal and institutional implications that theorists, politicians, and judges have derived from it. Since the 18th and 19th centuries, commentators and citizens have relied on the concept of constituent power to defend the idea that electors have the right to instruct representatives, and that the creation of new constitutions must take place through extra-legislative entities, such as primary assemblies open to all citizens. More recently, several Latin American constitutions explicitly incorporate the theory of constituent power and allow citizens, acting through popular initiative, to trigger constitution-making episodes that may result in the replacement of the entire constitutional order.Constitutional courts have employed constituent power to justify their jurisdiction to invalidate constitutional amendments that alter the fundamental structure of the constitution and thus amount to a constitution-making exercise. Some governments have reverted to it to defend the legality of transforming the constitutional order through procedures not contemplated in the constitution's amendment rule, but considered participatory enough to be equivalent to "the people in action", and these attempts have sometimes been sanctioned by courts. Building on these findings, Constituent Power and the Law argues that the exercise of constituent power, unlike sovereignty, should be understood as ultimately based on a popular mandate to produce a particular type of legal content. In practice, this makes it possible for a constitution-making body to be understood as legally subject to the conditions arising from a constituent referendum.
Responding to Imperfection
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821630
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821630
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.
The Broken Constitution
Author: Noah Feldman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations
Retained by the People
Author: Dan Farber
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465022987
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
Argues that the Supreme Court would do better to rely on the Ninth Amendment when addressing issues regarding fundamental rights, rather than depending on the Constitution's due process clause.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465022987
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
Argues that the Supreme Court would do better to rely on the Ninth Amendment when addressing issues regarding fundamental rights, rather than depending on the Constitution's due process clause.
Transnational Constitutionalism
Author: Nicholas Tsagourias
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113946468X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
An interdisciplinary perspective is adopted to examine international and European models of constitutionalism. In particular the book reflects critically on a number of constitutional themes, such as the nature of European and international constitutional models and their underlying principles; the telos behind international and European constitutionalism; the role of the state and of central courts; and the relationships between composite orders. Transnational Constitutionalism brings together a group of European and international law scholars, whose thought-provoking contributions provide the necessary intellectual insight that will assist the reader in understanding the political and legal phenomena that take place beyond the state. This edited collection represents an original and pioneering contribution to the international and European constitutional discourse.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113946468X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
An interdisciplinary perspective is adopted to examine international and European models of constitutionalism. In particular the book reflects critically on a number of constitutional themes, such as the nature of European and international constitutional models and their underlying principles; the telos behind international and European constitutionalism; the role of the state and of central courts; and the relationships between composite orders. Transnational Constitutionalism brings together a group of European and international law scholars, whose thought-provoking contributions provide the necessary intellectual insight that will assist the reader in understanding the political and legal phenomena that take place beyond the state. This edited collection represents an original and pioneering contribution to the international and European constitutional discourse.