The Judiciary and the Media

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-513
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

I am an English judge speaking in Jerusalem at a lecture to honor the memory of an Englishman who was the first member of the English Jewish Community to be appointed to the House of Lords, now the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. That was 60 years ago in 1951. So this is an important anniversary.This evening, I am seeking to highlight some of the issues that relate to the role of the media and the role of the judiciary in upholding the rule of law, and the interaction of their relationships in a democratic society that respects the rule of law. My experience is British, but my intention is to address questions that arise in any civilized democracy. The essential principles are unaffected by geography.My overwhelming belief is that the most emphatic feature of the relationship between the judiciary and the media is that the independence of the judiciary and the independence of the media are both fundamental to the continued exercise, and indeed the survival, of the liberties that we sometimes take for granted. I have said before, and I do not apologize for saying it again, these are critical independences, which are linked but separate. As far as I can discover, there never has been, and there is no community in the world in which an independent press flourishes while the judiciary is subservient to the executive or government, or where an independent judiciary is allowed to perform its true constitutional function while, at the same time, the press is fettered by the executive.

The Role of Courts in Rifted Democracies

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Gavison
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Harsh Criticism

A discussion of the role of courts in Israel today demands some introductory remarks. The Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Court enjoy great acclaim and respect within Israel and abroad, but have recently come under attack from a variety of sources. These attacks are often confused, and many of them are clearly motivated by narrow partisan interests and an inherent objection to the rule of law and judicial review. But these motives do not necessarily weaken the dangers which the attacks pose to the legitimacy of the courts in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, in Israel's public life. The fact that in some sectors extremely harsh criticism of the court is seen to be an electoral boost, testifies to the serious and dangerous nature of the threat. This situation creates a dilemma for those who want a strong and independent judiciary, believing it is essential for freedom and democracy, but who also believe that, during the last two decades, the courts have transgressed limits they should respect. The dilemma becomes especially acute when the political echo sounds out in one's criticism, and when one is part of the group that believes that the legal and the judicial systems have made some contribution to the prevalence of these hyperbolic and dangerous attacks, as I am.

Courts, Legitimacy and the Rule of Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-445
Author(s):  
Shaheed Fatima
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
The State ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Media

The role of courts as lawmakers has been scrutinised, partly because of the questions it raises regarding legitimacy. This scrutiny has sometimes assumed that courts are safe from legitimacy-based criticism in their role as appliers of law. However, recent events in the United Kingdom show that, regrettably, this is not so: the media reaction to the judgments in the Brexit case of Miller went far beyond criticism of the courts’ reasoning or conclusions. It was an attack on legitimacy. Insofar as such attacks arise out of misunderstandings about the nature of adjudication (including, for example, the existence and scope of judicial discretion), one way of countering them is for the legal community (scholars, judges, practitioners) to continue to increase public awareness about these issues. However, it is incumbent upon other parts of the state – the executive and the legislature – to respond promptly to such attacks in order to uphold the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.

scholarly journals CORRUPTION, CAPITAL ABUNDANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlatka Bilas ◽  
Mile Bošnjak ◽  
Sanja Franc
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
European Union Countries ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to establish and clarify the relationship between corruption level and development among European Union countries. Out of the estimated model in this paper one can conclude that the level of corruption can explain capital abundance differences among European Union countries. Also, explanatory power of corruption is higher in explaining economic development than in explaining capital abundance, meaning stronger relationship between corruption level and economic development than between corruption level and capital abundance. There is no doubt that reducing corruption would be beneficial for all countries. Since corruption is a wrongdoing, the rule of law enforcement is of utmost importance. However, root causes of corruption, namely the institutional and social environment: recruiting civil servants on a merit basis, salaries in public sector competitive to the ones in private sector, the role of international institutions in the fight against corruption, and some other corruption characteristics are very important to analyze in order to find effective ways to fight corruption. Further research should go into this direction.

scholarly journals A European convergence towards a stare decisis model?

2015 ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Civitarese
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Stare Decisis ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The article revolves around the doctrine of precedent within the so-called European legal space, wondering whether and to what extent we can speak of a convergence towards a stare decisis model boosted by the harmonizing role of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The article argues that although there are still some differences between civil law and common law legal systems they regard more the style of reasoning and the deep understanding of the relationship between the present decision of a court and past judicial decisions than the very existence of the constraints of the latter upon the former. The article concludes that a sort of mechanism of stare decisis has in fact been created, even though, on the one hand, uncertainty remains as to the way in which the binding force of a precedent concretely operates in the system, and on the other hand, this mechanism relates exclusively to the relationships between past and future decisions of higher courts (horizontal effect). This change, far from being a shift towards a truly judge-made law system or a consequence of the final abandonment of the dictates of the rule of law, enhances legal certainty contributing to the fundamental requirement of stability of law as a feature of the ideal of the rule of law.

Weaving a Tangled Web:Hapeand the Obfuscation of Canadian Reception Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 55-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Currie
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
The Relationship

SummaryThe majority Supreme Court of Canada judgment inHape— a case concerning extraterritorial applicability of theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms— is premised on three aspects of the relationship between international and Canadian law: (1) the interaction of customary international law and Canadian common law; (2) the role of Canada’s international legal obligations inCharterinterpretation; and (3) the potential role of customary international law as a source of unwritten principles of the Canadian Constitution. This article reviews pre-existing law in all three of these areas and analyzes a number of innovations apparently introduced thereto, with little or no explanation, by the majority inHape. It concludes thatHapeseriously exacerbates an already uncertain relationship between international and Canadian law, with fundamental consequences for the rule of law in Canada.

Rules for Courts: The Role of Lawyers, Judges, Professors and Government

1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-473
Author(s):  
Jack B. Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Procedure ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court

This discussion covers some methods and institutions for changing procedures in the courts. More particularly, I refer to procedures for conducting litigations in courts of general jurisdiction, that is to say, civil procedure, criminal procedure and evidence.Since criminal procedure and evidence are controlled here by statutes, I realize that when the terms “rules” or “regulations” are used you would normally think only of civil procedure. I use the term “rules” in a broader sense since in federal courts in the United States, most procedure governing civil and criminal trials and appeals, including evidence, stems from rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States, subject to modification by Congress.I shall describe briefly the history and present situation in the United States, making some reference to the British method, touch on the Israeli method, and then draw some general conclusions, raising some questions about the Israeli pattern as I understand it. These countries are comparable since each has a strong, independent judiciary and a tradition of freedom and the rule of law.

‘Belief’ in the Rule of Law and the Hindu Nation and the Rule of Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 353-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ratna Kapur
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
Indian State ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Relationship

Ratna Kapur illustrates how the Indian judiciary, through mobilizing a politics of ‘belief,’ has endorsed the identity of the Indian state as a Hindu nation through the discourse of rights and has underscored such practice through the constructed opposition between Islam and gender equality in the advocacy of the Hindu Right. The article analyses the role of religion in the constitutional discourse of secularism in India and how this has been used as a technique to establish and reinforce Hindu majoritarianism. The article focuses on the relationship between secularism, equality, and religion in law, which is pivotal to the Hindu Right’s project of constructing the Indian Nation as Hindu. Kapur notes that the judiciary has played a central role in legitimizing the Hindutva project, and that this project has gained traction in the legal arena to reshape the meaning of equality, gender equality, and religious freedom.

The Police and the Rule of Law: Commentary on “Principals and Secret Agents”

2007 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 671-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
He Weifang
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Police Management ◽  
Academic World ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Internet Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Management Power ◽  
The Relationship

Among Chinese political scientists and legal scholars, indeed within the Chinese academic world as a whole, research into the police is to a great degree marginalized. As the media have become more active, and in particular as internet media have arisen, it has become easier for some incidents of police infringements of human rights to attract nationwide attention. But there has been very little discussion of the relationship between these incidents and the police management system, or the division of police management power between the central and local governments and its ultimate influence on the construction of society in China under the rule of law.

Judicial Independence: The Politics of the Supreme Court in Mexico

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 705-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
PILAR DOMINGO
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Constitutional Rule ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the role of the Supreme Court in the development of the Mexican political system. The judiciary provided an important source of regime legitimation, as it allowed for the consolidation of a state of legality and a claim to constitutional rule of law, at least in discourse. However, the judiciary was in effect politically subordinated to the logic of dominant party rule through both specific constitutional reforms since 1917 that weakened the possibility of judicial independence and a politics of institutional and political co-optation. The constitutional reform of 1994 has significantly altered the nature of the relationship between the executive and the Supreme Court.

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