US Supreme Court Doctrine in the State High Courts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Fix ◽  
Benjamin J. Kassow
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Bo Alloh

This article examines the issue of jurisdiction between various high courts on the enforcement of fundamental rights in Nigeria. Fundamental rights are derived from the constitution and are expressly entrenched in the constitution of a country. They vary from one country to another and are specifically enacted in a country’s constitution in line with the history and culture of the country. In Nigeria, jurisdiction is vested in both State and Federal High Courts with respect to the enforcement of fundamental rights. However, the jurisdiction of the State High Courts is ousted and donated to the Federal High Courts, once a case on fundamental rights falls under section 251 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The researcher adopted the doctrinal method of research. The objective of this article is to reveal that the concurrent jurisdiction of both the Federal and State High Courts to hear and determine applications to secure the enforcement of fundamental rights has led to years of seemingly unsettled controversies, academically and procedurally. However, this controversy has been settled in the case of FUT Minna v Olutayo. This article concludes that the Supreme Court decision in the case of FUT Minna v Olutayo supports the realisation of the enforcement of fundamental rights in Nigeria.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
András Koltay

The issue of the use of religious symbols by the State, the Government, the Municipalities and Courts has emerged as a practical constitutional problem during the last quarter of a century. Contradictory examples of us Supreme Court jurisprudence prove that this issue is among the constitutional ‘hard cases’. The relatively recent appearance of the problem clearly indicates the ways in which American social conditions have changed and the transformation of us society’s attitude to religion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 31-68
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Sutton

The conventional account of judicial review starts with a US Supreme Court case, Marbury v. Madison. But judicial review in truth starts with the state courts and the state constitutions, not the US Supreme Court and the US Constitution. Before the US Constitution existed, the state courts established American judicial review and were the first courts to wrestle with the complexities of exercising it. Judicial review also is foremost a structural story, not an individual-rights story. The delegation of power to the judiciary to decide the meaning of our constitutions laid the groundwork for the growth in power of American courts—especially the federal courts, which have become the go-to answer for so many who-decides questions in American government over the last seventy-five years. This chapter begins a search for insights in resolving the dilemma of judicial review by looking at how the state courts innovated the concept and the ways they initially practiced it. It shows that the early state courts were deferential to the democratic branches of government. They rarely invalidated state laws and did so only when these laws violated a clear constitutional rule. That approach offers lessons for federal and state courts alike.


Author(s):  
Florian Matthey-Prakash

Chapter 4 deals with the issue of lack of access to justice and attempts to find reasons for the inaccessibility of the higher judiciary. While it appears to be clear to observers that the Supreme Court and high courts are not accessible enough, surprisingly, there are actually no empirical studies that examine why this is the case. Some factors can, however, be deduced from a study dealing with the inaccessibility of district courts, that is, the lower judiciary.The fourth chapter also shows that the institution of Public Interest Litigation, for various reasons, cannot compensate for lack of access to justice, and that the state is not properly implementing (or not at all exploring) many other possible alternative mechanisms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-590
Author(s):  
Sanjay Jain ◽  
Saranya Mishra

Abstract The Supreme Court of India (SC) pronounced a momentous judgment in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan in 1997, categorically recognizing the menace of sexual harassment (SH) at workplace and constitutionally rendering it as being in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India 1950. The Court also provided a mechanism for redressal against SH, which was ultimately reinforced by Parliament with the enactment of Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 (POSH Act). However, when it comes to allegations of SH against judges in the SC and High Courts by its employees, interns, or lower court judges, the response of the SC has been abysmal to say the least. There is a systematic pattern to suggest foul play and conspiracy in each such allegation, and judges, including even the Chief Justice of India (CJI), have not hesitated to openly indulge in victim-shaming and-blaming. In other words, the court has not been able to uphold its own jurisprudence on sexual harassment, which it expects to be scrupulously adhered to by other organs of the state. It is submitted that in not supporting the cause of victims alleging SH against judges, the other organs of the state are also party to this constitutional decay and serious infraction of fundamental rights. It leads us to ask the question, how can we guard against the guardians?


Author(s):  
Florian Matthey-Prakash

Chapter 3 offers some guidance concerning the content of Article 21A. This question is approached purely legally, not politically. Therefore, the chapter does not describe what content would be desirable. Instead, it discusses which concrete legal obligations the article might impose on the state. It also highlights that Article 21A, read with Articles 32 and 226, clearly imposes an obligation on the state to provide accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms to right-bearers. The fact that the petitioners in none of the cases concerning Article 21A decided by the Supreme Court, and in hardly any cases decided by the high courts, were aggrieved children or their parents shows that the higher judiciary is not accessible enough.


Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand ◽  
Robert Garner ◽  
Stephanie Lawson

This chapter examines power and authority, two central concepts in politics, in relation to the state. It first defines power in the context of authority, taking into account the distinction between them by citing the role of the US Supreme Court as an example. It then considers the classic threefold typology of authority proposed by German sociologist Max Weber, namely: traditional authority, charismatic authority, and legal–rational authority. It also addresses some conceptual questions about power; for example, whether power is the same as force, whether it must be exercised deliberately, whether it is a good thing, or whether we can eliminate it. The chapter goes on to explore the methodological problems inherent in the measurement of power, particularly in relation to the theories of the state such as Marxism, pluralism, elitism, and feminism. Finally, it describes Stephen Lukes' three dimensions of power.


Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay

This chapter examines how a state's colonial legal system and levels of political competition in the state legislature shaped the independence of judges on the state high court. It argues that the independence of judges in state high courts influences their behavior on the bench and thus economic and social outcomes. This is because judges face the difficulties of maintaining their positions. Thus, this chapter shows how judges facing Republican electorates were more likely to vote for businesses over individuals, and how those facing Democratic electorates had the opposite voting patterns. The chapter illustrates a model emphasizing these patterns, by plotting the relationships among legal initial conditions, political competition, and state courts.


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