Judicial Power, Democracy and Legal Positivism

Judicial Power, Democracy and Legal Positivism PDF

Author: Tom D. Campbell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1351924648

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In this book, a distinguished international group of legal theorists re-examine legal positivism as a prescriptive political theory and consider its implications for the constitutionally defined roles of legislatures and courts. The issues are illustrated with recent developments in Australian constitutional law.

Prescriptive Legal Positivism

Prescriptive Legal Positivism PDF

Author: Tom Campbell

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781844720231

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This collection of Tom Campbell's essays reaches back to his pioneering work on socialist rights in the 1980s and forward from his seminal book, The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism (1996).

The Cloaking of Power

The Cloaking of Power PDF

Author: Paul O. Carrese

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-02-15

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0226094839

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How did the US judiciary become so powerful—powerful enough that state and federal judges once vied to decide a presidential election? What does this prominence mean for the law, constitutionalism, and liberal democracy? In The Cloaking of Power, Paul O. Carrese provides a provocative analysis of the intellectual sources of today’s powerful judiciary, arguing that Montesquieu, in his Spirit of the Laws, first articulated a new conception of the separation of powers and strong but subtle courts. Montesquieu instructed statesmen to “cloak power” by placing judges at the center of politics, while concealing them behind juries and subtle reforms. Tracing this conception through Blackstone, Hamilton, and Tocqueville, Carrese shows how it led to the prominence of judges, courts, and lawyers in America today. But he places the blame for contemporary judicial activism squarely at the feet of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his jurisprudential revolution, which he believes to be the source of the now-prevalent view that judging is merely political. To address this crisis, Carrese argues for a rediscovery of an independent judiciary—one that blends prudence and natural law with common law and that observes the moderate jurisprudence of Montesquieu and Blackstone, balancing abstract principles with realistic views of human nature and institutions. He also advocates for a return to the complex constitutionalism of the American founders and Tocqueville and for judges who understand their responsibility to elevate citizens above individualism, instructing them in law and right.

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

Published: 2020-12-11

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 3030581861

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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.

Judicial Review and Contemporary Democratic Theory

Judicial Review and Contemporary Democratic Theory PDF

Author: Scott E. Lemieux

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-11-03

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1351602128

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For decades, the question of judicial review’s status in a democratic political system has been adjudicated through the framework of what Alexander Bickel labeled "the counter-majoritarian difficulty." That is, the idea that judicial review is particularly problematic for democracy because it opposes the will of the majority. Judicial Review and Contemporary Democratic Theory begins with an assessment of the empirical and theoretical flaws of this framework, and an account of the ways in which this framework has hindered meaningful investigation into judicial review’s value within a democratic political system. To replace the counter-majoritarian difficulty framework, Scott E. Lemieux and David J. Watkins draw on recent work in democratic theory emphasizing democracy’s opposition to domination and analyses of constitutional court cases in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere to examine judicial review in its institutional and political context. Developing democratic criteria for veto points in a democratic system and comparing them to each other against these criteria, Lemieux and Watkins yield fresh insights into judicial review’s democratic value. This book is essential reading for students of law and courts, judicial politics, legal theory and constitutional law.

The Constitution of Judicial Power

The Constitution of Judicial Power PDF

Author: Sotirios A. Barber

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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Barber shows that New Right theorists, such as Bork, and establishment liberals, such as Ronald Dworkin, are moral relativists who cannot escape conclusions ("might makes right," for example) that could destroy constitutionalism in America. The best hope for American freedoms, Barber argues, is to revive classical constitutionalism - and he explains how new movements in philosophy today allow the Court's friends to do just that. Written in a lively and engaging style.

The Rule of Law and the Separation of Powers

The Rule of Law and the Separation of Powers PDF

Author: Richard Bellamy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 743

ISBN-13: 1351540696

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The rule of law is frequently invoked in political debate, yet rarely defined with any precision. Some employ it as a synonym for democracy, others for the subordination of the legislature to a written constitution and its judicial guardians. It has been seen as obedience to the duly-recognised government, a form of governing through formal and general rule-like laws and the rule of principle. Given this diversity of view, it is perhaps unsurprising that certain scholars have regarded the concept as no more than a self-congratulatory rhetorical device. This collection of eighteen key essays from jurists, political theorists and public law political scientists, aims to explore the role law plays in the political system. The introduction evaluates their arguments. The first eleven essays identify the standard features associated with the rule of law. These are held to derive less from any characteristics of law per se than from a style of legislating and judging that gives equal consideration to all citizens. The next seven essays then explore how different ways of separating and dispersing power contribute to this democratic style of rule by forcing politicians and judges alike to treat people as equals and regard none as above the law.

Constitutionalism and Legal Reasoning

Constitutionalism and Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Massimo La Torre

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-04-10

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1402055951

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This book of legal philosophy contends that positive law is better understood if it is not too easily equated with power, force, or command. Law is more a matter of discourse and deliberation than of sheer decision or of power relations. Here is thought-provoking reading for lawyers, advocates, scholars of jurisprudence, students of law, philosophy and political science, and general readers concerned with the future of the constitutional state.

Legal Culture, Sociopolitical Origins and Professional Careers of Judges in Mexico

Legal Culture, Sociopolitical Origins and Professional Careers of Judges in Mexico PDF

Author: Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 303152909X

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Zusammenfassung: Her research makes an important methodological contribution to exploring legal culture and to comparative, ideational studies of judicial behavior. --Rachel Sieder, CIESAS, Mexico City. This rich sociolegal analysis is a welcome addition to the judicial and legal scholarship in Mexico and beyond. --Julio Ríos Figueroa, ITAM. This book explores the careers, professional trajectories and legal cultures of judges in the federal judiciary in Mexico. So far, there has been limited research on internal factors contributing to the understanding of judicial power dynamics in Mexico and other Latin American countries at large; this Work fills an important gap in the literature through its empirical investigation of internal legal cultures and judicial norms, offering new data, measurement strategies,and insights into the interactions between law, politics, norms, legal culture(s), as well as judicial behavior. Utilising an original survey, the chapters analyse judicial conceptualizations of role norms, legal cultures, proclivities for judicial activism, and judicial behavior. In so doing, this book contributes to understanding of underlying key internal factors of judicial activism or restraint, in turn moving forward the debate that seeks to explain judicial behavior reliant on internal and ideational perspectives. Complementing limited but existing studies of judicial politics in Mexico through its analysis of judges beyond those that sit at the Supreme Court, this book will be of particular interest to Latin-American judicial politics scholars due to its focus on the judicial power from internal perspectives as well as sub-national judges, filling a void in the literature vis-à-vis the study of courts in Latin America. This Work was originally written in Spanish, and the translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content. Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar is Professor of political science in the Department of Sociopolitical and Legal Studies at ITESO, the Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Mexico. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Florence, Italy. She teaches courses of political science, judicial politics and theories of democracy in undergraduate and graduate programs at ITESO and the University of Guadalajara. Her research interests include comparative judicial politics and democratization processes. Professor Aguiar has edited books and published several articles in peer review journals about democracy, courts, and justice-sector institutions. She has been distinguished as a member of the National Researchers System in Mexico