This book offers a comprehensive systematic analysis of the European Union’s Early Warning System (EWS) for subsidiarity, which was introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. The book includes both a d
It has been frequently argued that democracy is protected and realized under constitutions that protect certain rights and establish the conditions for a functioning representative democracy. However,
Comparative scholarship on judicial review has paid a lot of attention to the causal impact of politics on judicial decision-making. However, the slower-moving, macro-social process through which judicial review influences societal conceptions of the law/politics relation is less well understood. Drawing on the political science literature on institutional change, The Politico-Legal Dynamics of Judicial Review tests a typological theory of the evolution of judicial review regimes - complexes of legitimating ideas about the law/politics relation. The theory posits that such regimes tend to conform to one of four main types - democratic or authoritarian legalism, or democratic or authoritarian instrumentalism. Through case studies of Australia, India, and Zimbabwe, and a comparative chapter analyzing ten additional societies, the book then explores how actually-existing judicial review regimes transition between these types. This process of ideational development, Roux concludes, is dist
In every era of communications technology - whether print, radio, television, or Internet - some form of government censorship follows to regulate the medium and its messages. Today we are seeing the phenomenon of 'machine speech' enhanced by the development of sophisticated artificial intelligence. Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover argue that the First Amendment must provide defenses and justifications for covering and protecting robotic expression. It is irrelevant that a robot is not human and cannot have intentions; what matters is that a human experiences robotic speech as meaningful. This is the constitutional recognition of 'intentionless free speech' at the interface of the robot and receiver. Robotica is the first book to develop the legal arguments for these purposes. Aimed at law and communication scholars, lawyers, and free speech activists, this work explores important new problems and solutions at the interface of law and technology.
This book provides a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of minority protection through national constitutional law and international law in Europe.
The promulgation of the Fifth French Republic Constitution in 1958 marked the end of a complex constitutional history that has since 1789 seen more than twenty constitutions and five Republics. Lastin
The peace, order and good government clause (POGG) clause is found in the constitutions of almost all Commonwealth countries. It remains uncertain when clause was first introduced into Commonwealth co
Can courts really build democracy in a state emerging from authoritarian rule? This book presents a searching critique of the contemporary global model of democracy-building for post-authoritarian states, arguing that it places excessive reliance on courts. Since 1945, both constitutional courts and international human rights courts have been increasingly perceived as alchemists, capable of transmuting the base materials of a nascent democracy into the gold of a functioning democratic system. By charting the development of this model, and critically analysing the evidence and claims for courts as democracy-builders, this book argues that the decades-long trend toward ever greater reliance on courts is based as much on faith as fact, and can often be counter-productive. Offering a sustained corrective to unrealistic perceptions of courts as democracy-builders, the book points the way toward a much needed rethinking of democracy-building models and a re-evaluation of how we employ courts
In this volume marking the Sesquicentennial of Confederation in Canada, leading scholars and jurists discuss the evolution of the Canadian Constitution since the British North America Act 1867; the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the Constitution as a 'living tree' capable of application to new legal issues; and the growing influence of both the Constitution, with its entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the decisions of the Court on other constitutional courts dealing with a wide range of issues pertaining to human rights and democratic government. The contributors assess how the Canadian Constitution accommodates the cultural diversity of the country's territories and peoples while ensuring the universal applicability of its provisions; the role of the Court in interpreting and applying the Constitution; and the growing global influence of the Constitution and decisions of the Court on legislatures and courts in other countries.
Almost Citizens lays out the tragic story of how the United States denied Puerto Ricans full citizenship following annexation of the island in 1898. As America became an overseas empire, a handful of remarkable Puerto Ricans debated with US legislators, presidents, judges, and others over who was a citizen and what citizenship meant. This struggle caused a fundamental shift in constitution law: away from the post-Civil War regime of citizenship, rights, and statehood, and toward doctrines that accommodated racist imperial governance. Erman's gripping account shows how, in the wake of the Spanish-American War, administrators, lawmakers, and presidents together with judges deployed creativity and ambiguity to transform constitutional meaning for a quarter of a century. The result is a history in which the United States and Latin America, Reconstruction and empire, and law and bureaucracy intertwine.
Gathering together an impressive array of legal scholars from around the world, this book features essays on Jeremy Bentham’s major legal theoretical treatise, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jur
This book explores how the Internet impacts on the protection of fundamental rights, particularly with regard to freedom of speech and privacy. In doing so, it seeks to bridge the gap between Internet Law and European and Constitutional Law. The book aims to emancipate the debate on internet law and jurisprudence from the dominant position, with specific reference to European legal regimes. This approach aims to inject a European and constitutional “soul” into the topic. Moreover, the book addresses the relationship between new technologies and the protection of fundamental rights within the theoretical debate surrounding the process of European integration, with particular emphasis on judicial dialogue. This innovative book provides a thorough analysis of the forms, models and styles of judicial protection of fundamental rights in the digital era and compares the European vision to that of the United States. The book offers the first comparative analysis in which the notion of (judici
Oliver Wendell Holmes was one of the most influential figures in American law. As a Supreme Court Justice, he wrote foundational opinions about such important constitutional issues as freedom of speech and the limits of state regulatory power. As a scholar and Massachusetts High Court judge, he helped to reshape the common law for the modern industrial era. And yet, despite the many accounts of his career, Holmes himself remains an enigma. This book is the first to explore the nineteenth-century New England influences so crucial to the formation of his character. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendentalism, Holmes belonged to a group of men who formulated a philosophy known as American pragmatism that stood as an alternative to English empiricism and German rationalism. This innovative study places Holmes within the transcendentalist, pragmatist tradition and thereby unlocks his unique identity and contribution to American law. Wells' nuanced analysis will appeal to legal schol
Proportionality in Action presents an empirical and comparative exploration of the proportionality doctrine, based on detailed accounts of the application of the framework by apex courts in six jurisdictions: Germany, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Poland and India. The analysis of each country is written and contextualized by a constitutional scholar from the relevant jurisdiction. Each country analysis draws upon a large sample of case law and employs a mixed methodological approach: an expansive coding scheme allows for quantitative analysis providing comparable and quantifiable measurements, which is enriched by qualitative analysis that engages with the substance of the decisions and captures nuance, contextualizing the data and providing it with meaning. The book concludes with a comparative chapter that synthesizes some of the most interesting findings. Focusing on deviations of the practice of proportionality from theory, the authors conclude their argument in support of an inte
From Parchment to Practice explores the set of problems that arise when a new constitution has been adopted. All new constitutions must manage a balance or tension between two forces: aspirations for social and political transformation on the one hand and demands for preservation of old interests and institutions on the other. The period following the initial adoption of a new constitution, is the conceptual, temporal, and institutional bridge between the past and future. It is the moment when the transformative and the preservative forces in constitutional design can come into the sharpest conflict. Through a series of case studies, this volume analyzes the variable nature of these type of conflicts - and the diverse means through which they are mediated, whether successfully or not.
A lot has happened to the UK Constitution in the last seven years. We've witnessed the UK's exit from the EU, further devolution to Scotland and Wales, a number of prominent cases by the Supreme Court, two early parliamentary general elections, major governmental defeats and two Prime Ministerial resignations. Alison Young has built on the text of Colin Turpin and Adam Tomkins' earlier edition, keeping their unique historical and contextual approach, whilst bringing the material up to date with more contemporary examples, including references to Brexit, the recent prorogation and Brexit case law, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The book continues to include substantial extracts from parliamentary and other political sources as well as from legislation and case law. It also provides a full yet accessible account of the British constitution at the culmination of a series of dramatic events, on the threshold of possible further constitutional reform.
The Indian Supreme Court is widely seen as a vanguard of progressive social change. Yet there are no systematic studies of whether its progressive decisions actually improve the lives of the relatively disadvantaged. This book presents the first collection of original empirical studies on the impact of the Indian Supreme Court's most progressive decisions. Combining original datasets with in-depth qualitative research, the chapters provide a rigorous examination of the conditions under which judicial decisions can make a difference to those in need. These studies reveal that the Indian Supreme Court, like its US counterpart, is largely constrained in its efforts. Yet, through the broad sweep of constitutional rights in the Indian Constitution, the Court's procedural innovations, and its institutional independence, the Indian Supreme Court can sometimes make a difference - in the lives of those most in need.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was one of the most influential and controversial women of her age. No writer, except perhaps her political foe, Edmund Burke, and her fellow reformer, Thomas Paine, inspired more intense reactions. In her brief literary career before her untimely death in 1797, Wollstonecraft achieved remarkable success in an unusually wide range of genres: from education tracts and political polemics, to novels and travel writing. Just as impressive as her expansive range was the profound evolution of her thinking in the decade when she flourished as an author. In this collection of essays, leading international scholars reveal the intricate biographical, critical, cultural, and historical context crucial for understanding Mary Wollstonecraft's oeuvre. Chapters on British radicalism and conservatism, French philosophes and English Dissenters, constitutional law and domestic law, sentimental literature, eighteenth-century periodicals and more elucidate Wollstonecraft's
