Mediators and Moderators of Normative Reductionism: Towards a Testimonial Approach to Expertise in Legal Inquiry

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-556
Author(s):  
Suryapratim Roy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Decision ◽  
Legal Decision Making

There has been an increasing interest in making legal decision-making and scholarship scientific or inter-disciplinary, without there being any interrogation of how or why this should be done. This has resulted in polarised views of the importance of science on one hand, and the primacy of democracy on the other. Such polarisation is not helpful primarily because both ‘science’ and ‘democracy’ remain unintelligible to those who do not have access to the particular epistemology that supports their usage. In this article, I seek to reconceptualise the conflict between democracy and science as the association of legal decision-makers and scholars with expert inquiry. I further conceptualise such association as a process that involves normative reductionism of testimonial exchange. Despite a claim to ‘a culture of justification’ in legal systems such as the European Union, the process of normative reductionism is essentially arbitrary. I seek to articulate a framework where this process may be approached in a disciplined manner, concentrating on the role of mediation and moderation of expert knowledge.

INTRODUCTION: HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Banta ◽  
Wija Oortwijn
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Health Technology Assessment ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Technology Assessment ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Level

Health technology assessment (HTA) has become increasingly important in the European Union as an aid to decision making. As agencies and programs have been established, there is increasing attention to coordination of HTA at the European level, especially considering the growing role of the European Union in public health in Europe. This series of papers describes and analyzes the situation with regard to HTA in the 15 members of the European Union, plus Switzerland. The final paper draws some conclusions, especially concerning the future involvement of the European Commission in HTA.

Neither here, not there: Bulgaria and Romania in current European politics☆

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor D. Bojkov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Eu

The article analyses the process of EU enlargement with reference to the progress that Bulgaria and Romania have made within it. It is argued that leaving them out of the wave of accession finalised in May 2004 for ten of the candidate states, has placed them in a situation of double exclusion. Firstly, their geographical belonging to the region of Southeast Europe has been rendered non-essential by their advanced position within the EU enlargement process. Secondly, their achievement in economic and political transition has been removed from the progress of the ten states, which joined the EU in May 2004 by delaying the time of their accession. As a result, any efforts in regional cooperation and integration between Bulgaria and Romania on one hand, and other Southeast European states on the other, have been effectively cancelled. Moreover, in current European politics, the two countries have come to serve the unenviable role of exemplifying on the part of the European Union how progress is being awarded and hesitation punished.

A Permanent Constitutional Assembly

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Institutional Solution ◽  
The Eu

This chapter presents an institutional proposal for how citizens could be enabled—in the dual role of European and national citizens—to exercise constituent power in the EU. To explain in abstract terms what an institutional solution would have to involve, it draws on the notion of a sluice system, according to which the particular value of representative bodies consists in their capacity to provide both transmission and filter functions for democratic processes. On this basis, the chapter critically discusses the proposal that the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) should transform itself into an inter-parliamentary constitutional assembly. As this model allows constituted powers to continue to operate as the EU’s de facto constituent powers, it cannot be expected to deliver the functions of a sluice system. The chapter goes on to argue that a more convincing solution would be to turn the Convention of Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union into a permanent constitutional assembly composed of two chambers, one elected by EU citizens and the other by member state citizens. The chapter outlines the desirable features of such an assembly and defends the model against a number of possible objections.

Of Apples and Mangoes

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Philipp Dann ◽  
Maxim Bönnemann ◽  
Tanja Herklotz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
The One

Discussing several methods of comparative legal research and emphasizing upon the point that the two or more systems to be compared should not either be so similar that there is nothing for the one to learn from the other, nor should they be so dissimilar that there is no relationship whatsoever between them. Following this principle, this chapter finds that there is enough similarity as well as dissimilarity between the Indian legal system and the legal system of the European Union. Acknowledging that fact, the chapter then proceeds to compare some of the aspects of European and Indian legal systems from which both of them may benefit.

The European Union in Nice: A Minimalist Approach to a Historic Challenge

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlheinz Neunreither
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Interests ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
The Eu

In Early December 2000 The Political Leaders Of The European Union (EU) met in Nice in order to decide on the treaty adaptations needed before the enlargement envisaged for the next decade. The overall goal was to render the EU more efficient and its decision making more transparent. The outcome of this important event was widely considered as disappointing. Some observers even came to the conclusion that there were no leaders of the EU as such, but only rather narrow-minded, egotistical national leaders who did not – with minor exceptions – care about the ‘common good’ at all. Never had it become so evident, in the opinion of some, that the European perspective had been fading away for many years, and that it was being replaced by national considerations which are often short-sighted and limited to the horizon of the next national elections. One of the classical theories on European integration, neo-functionalism, measures the progress of integration in terms of the Europeanization of its political elites. From this perspective, the top decision-makers seem to be on a downward trend. Is it then a case for the opposite theory, that of intergovernmentalism, which claims that national interests continue to be in the centre of EU decision-making and that tough bargaining is of its very nature?

scholarly journals How Sanctions on Russia Impact the Economy of the European Union

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Năsulea ◽  
Beatrice Nicolle Crețu ◽  
Diana Florentina Spînu
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Accurate Assessment ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Invaluable Tool ◽  
Crimean Crisis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Although new sanctions have been imposed, to varying degrees, on Russia since the debut of the Crimean crisis, few experts are taking the chance of publishing an assessment of the impact these sanctions will have on Russia or the European Union. On one hand, the complexity of the variables involved makes it extremely difficult to predict the outcome of said sanctions; on the other hand, an accurate assessment would make an invaluable tool in the hands of decision makers, no matter if their decisions are made with regards to foreign policy, public policy or the daily business of private companies. This article sets out to examine the context, some of the variables involved and some of the forecasts that have been put forward by various experts, while trying to provide a simplified model for assessing the impact of sanctions enacted by the EU on its own economy.

scholarly journals The politics of embedding and the right to remain in post-Brexit Britain

Ethnicities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146879682091341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiina Sotkasiira ◽  
Anna Gawlewicz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

The European Union membership referendum (i.e. the Brexit referendum) in the United Kingdom in 2016 triggered a process of introspection among non-British European Union citizens with respect to their right to remain in the United Kingdom, including their right to entry, permanent residence, and access to work and social welfare. Drawing on interview data collected from 42 European Union nationals, namely Finnish and Polish migrants living in Scotland, we explore how European Union migrants’ decision-making and strategies for extending their stay in the United Kingdom, or returning to their country of origin, are shaped by and, in turn, shape their belonging and ties to their current place of residence and across state borders. In particular, we draw on the concept of embedding, which is used in migration studies to explain migration trajectories and decision-making. Our key argument is that more attention needs to be paid to the socio-political context within which migrants negotiate their embedding. To this end, we employ the term ‘politics of embedding’ to highlight the ways in which the embedding of non-British European Union citizens has been politicized and hierarchically structured in the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum. By illustrating how the context of Brexit has changed how people evaluate their social and other attachments, and how their embedding is differentiated into ‘ties that bind’ and ‘ties that count’, we contribute to the emerging work on migration and Brexit, and specifically to the debate on how the politicization of migration shapes the sense of security on the one hand, and belonging, on the other.

Balancing, Subsumption, and the Constraining Role of Legal Text

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Argumentation ◽  
Legal Decision ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Legal Decision Making ◽  
External Constraint ◽  
Canonical Texts

Robert Alexy has for many years been a prominent analyst of the role of principles in legal argumentation, and an equally prominent defender of the rationality of balancing and proportionality modes of legal decision-making. But although Alexy's defense of proportionality and balancing against charges by Jürgen Habermas and Justice Antonin Scalia that balancing is essentially an irrational process is sound, Alexy in the process is too quick to collapse the important differences between the process of balancing competing principles and the process of interpreting a canonical written text. Although both can be and are frequently rational, rationality is not the same as external constraint, and the ability of canonical texts to provide a degree of external constraint on legal decision-making that cannot be provided by open-ended principles is a difference that should not be lost in the well-aimed efforts to demonstrate that both can be rational and both have important places in legal argumentation and decision-making.

scholarly journals Role of the Philosophy of Law in the process of unifying the legal systems of the members of the European Union in the context of the Common Framework of Reference Project v

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (68) ◽  
pp. 463-475
Author(s):  
Fursa Svitlana Yaroslavivna ◽  
Kukhniuk Dmitriy Vladimirovich ◽  
Bondar Iryna Vadymivna ◽  
Maliarchuk Liubov Sergiivna ◽  
Derii Olena Olexsandrivna
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Strategic Direction ◽  
Common Framework ◽  
The Common

The study discusses the role of the philosophy of law in the process of unifying legal systems through the prism of the principles of the Draft Common Framework of Reference in Europe. The application of the philosophy of law in unification processes is also a necessary condition for the implementation of these processes about human rights and the sovereign interests of the State, which implements the unification of the legal order. Hence, the issue of European integration determines the strategic direction of the state, and this leads to the unification of law. The study aims to identify the role of the philosophy of law in the processes of unifying the legal systems of the European Union and its importance in the use of principles in these processes, justifying the need to use the philosophy of law in any process of transformation. It is concluded that the philosophy of law is a bridge harmonized with the legal sphere of operation of both individual states and supranational associations.

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