Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism

Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism PDF Author: Pierluigi Chiassoni
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030581861
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The book offers contributions to a philosophical and realistic approach to the place of adjudication in contemporary constitutional democracies. Bringing together scholars from different legal and philosophical backgrounds, the book purports to cast light on the role(s) of judges and the function of judicial interpretation inside of constitutional states, from the standpoint of legal realism as a revisited and sophisticated jurisprudential outlook. In so doing, the book also copes with a few major jurisprudential issues, like, e.g., determining the ideas that make up the core of legal realism, exploring the relation between legal realism and legal positivism, identifying the boundaries of judicial interpretation as they appear from a realist standpoint, as well as considering some skeptical outlooks on the very claims of contemporary legal realism.

Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism

Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism PDF Author: Pierluigi Chiassoni
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030581861
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The book offers contributions to a philosophical and realistic approach to the place of adjudication in contemporary constitutional democracies. Bringing together scholars from different legal and philosophical backgrounds, the book purports to cast light on the role(s) of judges and the function of judicial interpretation inside of constitutional states, from the standpoint of legal realism as a revisited and sophisticated jurisprudential outlook. In so doing, the book also copes with a few major jurisprudential issues, like, e.g., determining the ideas that make up the core of legal realism, exploring the relation between legal realism and legal positivism, identifying the boundaries of judicial interpretation as they appear from a realist standpoint, as well as considering some skeptical outlooks on the very claims of contemporary legal realism.

The Judge as Political Theorist

The Judge as Political Theorist PDF Author: David Robertson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836875
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
The Judge as Political Theorist examines opinions by constitutional courts in liberal democracies to better understand the logic and nature of constitutional review. David Robertson argues that the constitutional judge's role is nothing like that of the legislator or chief executive, or even the ordinary judge. Rather, constitutional judges spell out to society the implications--on the ground--of the moral and practical commitments embodied in the nation's constitution. Constitutional review, in other words, is a form of applied political theory. Robertson takes an in-depth look at constitutional decision making in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Canada, and South Africa, with comparisons throughout to the United States, where constitutional review originated. He also tackles perhaps the most vexing problem in constitutional law today--how and when to limit the rights of citizens in order to govern. As traditional institutions of moral authority have lost power, constitutional judges have stepped into the breach, radically altering traditional understandings of what courts can and should do. Robertson demonstrates how constitutions are more than mere founding documents laying down the law of the land, but increasingly have become statements of the values and principles a society seeks to embody. Constitutional judges, in turn, see it as their mission to transform those values into political practice and push for state and society to live up to their ideals.

Law and Disagreement

Law and Disagreement PDF Author: Jeremy Waldron
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191024473
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1079

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Book Description
When people disagree about justice and about individual rights, how should political decisions be made among them? How should they decide about issues like tax policy, welfare provision, criminal procedure, discrimination law, hate speech, pornography, political dissent and the limits of religious toleration? The most familiar answer is that these decisions should be made democratically, by majority voting among the people or their representatives. Often, however, this answer is qualified by adding ' providing that the majority decision does not violate individual rights.' In this book Jeremy Waldron has revisited and thoroughly revised thirteen of his most recent essays. He argues that the familiar answer is correct, but that the qualification about individual rights is incoherent. If rights are the very things we disagree about, then we are quarrelling precisely about what that qualification should amount to. At best, what it means is that disagreements about rights should be resolved by some other procedure, for example, by majority voting, not among the people or their representatives, but among judges in a court. This proposal - although initially attractive - seems much less agreeable when we consider that the judges too disagree about rights, and they disagree about them along exactly the same lines as the citizens. This book offers a comprehensive critique of the idea of the judicial review of legislation. The author argues that a belief in rights is not the same as a commitment to a Bill of Rights. He shows the flaws and difficulties in many common defences of the 'democratic' character of judicial review. And he argues for an alternative approach to the problem of disagreement: when disagreements about rights arise, the respectful way to resolve them is by decision-making among the right-holders on a basis that reflects an equal respect for them as the holders of views about rights. This respect for ordinary right-holders, he argues, has been sadly lacking in the theories of justice, rights, and constitutionalism put forward in recent years by philosophers such as John Rawls and Donald Dworkin. But the book is not only about judicial review. The first tranche of essays is devoted to a theory of legislation, a theory which highlights the size, the scale and the diversity of modern legislative assemblies. Although legislation is often denigrated as a source of law, Waldron seeks to restore its tattered dignity. He deprecates the tendency to disparage legislatures and argues that such disparagement is often a way of bolstering the legitimacy of the courts, as if we had to transform our parliaments into something like the American Congress to justify importing American-style judicial reviews. Law and Disagreement redresses the balances in modern jurisprudence. It presents legislation by a representative assembly as a form of law making which is especially apt for a society whose members disagree with one another about fundamental issues of principle, for it is a form of law making that does not attempt to conceal the fact that our decisions are made and claim their authority in the midst of, not in spite of, our political and moral disagreements. This timely rights-based defence of majoritarian legislation will be welcomed by scholars of legal and political philosophy throughout the world.

The New Legal Realism: Volume 1

The New Legal Realism: Volume 1 PDF Author: Elizabeth Mertz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107071131
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the first of two volumes announcing the emergence of the new legal realism as a field of study. At a time when the legal academy is turning to social science for new approaches, these volumes chart a new course for interdisciplinary research by synthesizing law on the ground, empirical research, and theory. Volume 1 lays the groundwork for this novel and comprehensive approach with an innovative mix of theoretical, historical, pedagogical, and empirical perspectives. Their empirical work covers such wide-ranging topics as the financial crisis, intellectual property battles, the legal disenfranchisement of African-American landowners, and gender and racial prejudice on law school faculties. The methodological blueprint offered here will be essential for anyone interested in the future of law-and-society.

Meta-theory of Law

Meta-theory of Law PDF Author: Mathieu Carpentier
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1394163681
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
This book is devoted to the theory of legal theory, also referred to as the "meta-theory of law". The aim of this emerging discipline is to determine the objectives, aims and methods of legal theory, and to establish the conditions of possibility as well as the validity criteria for theoretical discourse on law. The contributions in this book provide an overview of these aspects through different perspectives and approaches. The very purpose of legal theory has been disputed and the subject area is currently subject to increasing cross-fertilization between different, and sometimes diverging, traditions. Meta-theory of Law assesses these emerging trends by questioning two basic objects of legal theory, the "nature" and the "science" of law.

Legal Power and Legal Competence

Legal Power and Legal Competence PDF Author: Gonzalo Villa-Rosas
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031285557
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This volume explores the concepts of legal power and legal competence in fourteen original, cutting-edge chapters by leading legal theorists. Legal power and legal competence are major topics in jurisprudence, as they concern a range of practices, common to all modern legal systems, that empower individuals to bring about changes in the respective system by changing their own legal position or the legal positions of others. This compilation covers five broad themes. The chapters in the first section address open questions on the meaning of legal power and legal competence, while those in the second tackle problems regarding their normativity. The third section is devoted to specifically exploring the relationship between legal power and constitutive norms. The fourth focuses on the analysis of legal officials and legal offices, while the fifth and final section assesses various theories of legal power and legal competence.

Taking Rights Seriously

Taking Rights Seriously PDF Author: Ronald Dworkin
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780938330
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
A landmark work of political and legal philosophy, Ronald Dworkin's Taking Rights Seriously was acclaimed as a major work on its first publication in 1977 and remains profoundly influential in the 21st century. A forceful statement of liberal principles - championing the legal, moral and political rights of the individual against the state - Dworkin demolishes prevailing utilitarian and legal-positivist approaches to jurisprudence. Developing his own theory of adjudication, he applies this to controversial public issues, from civil disobedience to positive discrimination. Elegantly written and cuttingly insightful, Taking Rights Seriously is one of the most important works of public thought of the last fifty years.

Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court

Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court PDF Author: Richard H. Fallon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975812
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Legitimacy and judicial authority -- Constitutional meaning : original public meaning -- Constitutional meaning : varieties of history that matter -- Law in the Supreme Court : jurisprudential foundations -- Constitutional constraints -- Constitutional theory and its relation to constitutional practice -- Sociological, legal, and moral legitimacy : today and tomorrow

Originalism as Faith

Originalism as Faith PDF Author: Eric J. Segall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107188555
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Tracing the development of originalism, Eric J. Segall shows how judges often use the theory to reach politically desirable results.

Comparative Constitutional Reasoning

Comparative Constitutional Reasoning PDF Author: AndrĂ¡s Jakab
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108138616
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 867

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Book Description
To what extent is the language of judicial opinions responsive to the political and social context in which constitutional courts operate? Courts are reason-giving institutions, with argumentation playing a central role in constitutional adjudication. However, a cursory look at just a handful of constitutional systems suggests important differences in the practices of constitutional judges, whether in matters of form, style, or language. Focusing on independently-verified leading cases globally, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of constitutional reasoning to date. This analysis is supported by the examination of eighteen legal systems around the world including the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. Universally common aspects of constitutional reasoning are identified in this book, and contributors also examine whether common law countries differ to civil law countries in this respect.