Constitutional Principles

Author(s):  
Se-shauna Wheatle

This chapter situates constitutional principles within the construction of Caribbean constitutional identity and interrogates their role in shaping the relationship between Caribbean constitutionalism and constitutional law in related jurisdictions. The second section of the chapter outlines initial efforts at developing a Caribbean constitutional identity through constitutional drafting as well as judicial discovery and use of constitutional principles in early constitutional interpretation in the region. The third section analyses the friction between recourse to unwritten norms and a new constitutional direction built on codified constitutions, by examining the extent to which constitutional principles function as vessels for incorporation of foreign law. The fourth section charts a path forward, advocating a ‘creolized’ Caribbean constitutionalism that blends the varying local and global influences on Caribbean law and society.

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 1617-1640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Faraguna

This Article consists of five sections. In the first section, it describes why identity questions matter, particularly in Europe. In the second section, the Article tackles the issue of multiple structural ambiguities affecting the concept of constitutional identity in the European constitutional vocabulary. In the third section, the Article explores trends concerning the use of constitutional identity in the European legal discourse and practice, including the development of alternative interpretations and applications of the notion of constitutional identities in the Member States. The fourth section of the Article combines the analytical accounts outlined in the second section with the trends identified in the third section, contending that different conceptions and applications of constitutional identity have varying effects on the European composite constitutional adjudication system and that the institutional and procedural framework should be calibrated accordingly. The final section of this Article draws some conclusions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Zoe Adams

The chapter builds on the analysis in Chapter 1 with a view to exploring the nature of law and its relationship with capitalist society in more detail. The previous chapter used an analysis of capitalism’s deep structures to explore the nature of law’s role(s) in capitalism, engaging with the various legal ‘functions’ that capitalism presupposes. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the implications of this understanding of law’s role (or function) when it comes to understanding law’s form. The first section begins by developing a theory of the legal form by engaging with the work of Evgeny Pashukanis. The second section teases out the implications of this analysis for our understanding of the relationship between the legal form and capitalism’s contradictions. The third section draws on this analysis to shed light on the relationship between legal form and content. The fourth section makes some tentative conclusions about the implications of this analysis for our understanding of labour law.


Author(s):  
Kamali Mohammad Hashim

This chapter begins with a brief characterization of Islamic constitutional law and its underdeveloped status as compared with other branches of Islamic law. It then highlights salient differences between the Islamic and Western approaches to constitutional law and briefly discusses Islam and secularism. The next section provides a general characterization of the Islamic system of rule under four sub-headings. The first of these defines government in Islam as a trust (amānah); the second describes it as a limited and thus non-totalitarian government; the third addresses the Islamic system of rule as a qualified democracy; and the last characterizes it as a civilian not a theocratic system of government. The final section summarizes the main results of the preceding analysis and offers some tentative conclusions on the relationship between Islamic government and democratic constitutionalism.


Author(s):  
Anselm Doering-Manteuffel

Breaking the Law as a Norm: Contours of Ideological Radicalism within the Nazi Dictatorship. This article analyzes the relationship between Nazi legal experts’ efforts to create a canon of constitutional law for the Third Reich and the ideological radicalism characteristic of Hitler and the SS-state. The attempts of legal professionals to establish “völkisch” constitutional law emerged out of the staunch anti-liberalism that had spread throughout Germany since the end of World War I. However, this “völkisch” constitutional law bore no resemblance to rational European legal thought. It not only proved to be ineffective for this reason, but also because the ideological radicalism that reigned supreme in the Third Reich sought to break the law and let lawlessness rule.


Author(s):  
Harold J. Berman

This article examines the link between comparative law and religion. The first section examines the scholarly literature on interrelationships of comparative law and religion, which is skimpy, to say the least. The second section examines religious influence on diverse families of law. The third section looks at the impact of civil religions on law. The fourth section discusses religious dimensions of law. The fifth section considers the relationship between world law and world religion.


Refuge ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Salcedo

The conference, “Migration and Violence: Lessons from Colombia to the Americas” was held in Bogotá D.C., Colombia at the Pontifi cia Universidad Javeriana on June 29, 2012. The main objective of the conference was to develop inter-disciplinary academic research in Central America and Mexico regarding the relationship between violence, particularly narco-violence, and migration. The setting in Bogotá D.C. was deliberate as the participants discussed how lessons learned from Colombia’s experience with narco-induced migration could be leveraged for the benefit of Central America and Mexico. With the participation of experts on international migration, government representatives, academics, and civil society, the conference highlighted research results and relevant intervention experience concerning this problem in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.This article presents an analysis of the presentations given and the discussions held at the conference. It consists of four parts. The first section compares the similarities and differences regarding migration and violence in Colombia and El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. The second section presents the major epistemological challenges emerging from research and models of intervention. The third section presents the implications of the epistemological challenges and their impact on public policy. The fourth section concludes with principal lessons from Colombia for research and intervention in the problem of violence and migration.


Author(s):  
Sarah Washbrook

This chapter analyzes the institution of debt peonage in Chiapas during the Porfiriato. The first section examines Porfirian debates regarding the relationship between debt peonage, slavery, and market development in Chiapas. The second section addresses the economics and economic rationality of debt peonage. The third section focuses on the legal foundations of rural peonage and domestic servitude in the state. The fourth section tackles the issue of coercion and consent and the ‘popular legitimacy’ of debt peonage. The final section looks at the issue of debt peonage in Chiapas after the resignation of President Díaz, comparing the legislative proposals of local politicians with those of the Constitutionalists who descended on the state in 1914, and underlining the significance of the institution during the years of Mexico's armed Revolution (1910–20).


2020 ◽  
pp. 251-290
Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham

part 4 History, Identity, and the Present Part 4 considers the role of historical consciousness in shaping present-day identity. It is critical of prejudicial ‘Identity History’ while enjoining historians to embrace their roles in historical arguments pertaining to identity. The first section clarifies what falls outside the definition of ‘Identity History’, noting that much excellent scholarship pertains to identity and even serves identity goals without being prejudicial. The second section highlights where historians working on identity matters are likely to fall into conceptual difficulty. Is the relationship between past ‘them’ and present ‘us’ a matter of identity or difference or a bit of both? Identity History is inconsistent here, with different attitudes taken depending on whether that past behaviour was good or bad by present lights. There are consequences for the historian’s engagement with past rights and wrongs, harms and benefits, because claims on these matters constitute stakes in the identity game whose winner gets to decide what is desirable in the here and now. The third section develops such themes and distinguishes between more and less appropriate idioms for characterizing the relationship between contemporary polities and groups on one hand and the deeds of relevant ‘forebears’ on the other hand. It is a mistake to talk of contemporary guilt, or for that matter virtue, in light of what one’s predecessors did, but the language of shame or pride may be appropriate. The fourth section addresses the material legacies of past action, considering matters of compensation and redistribution. The concluding section returns to broader principles.


1969 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon F. Snow

This is the third in a series of studies dealing with the history of the proxy system in the House of Lords. The first, after tracing the origin of proxies to the Roman law of agency, dealt with the emergence and spread of representation by proctors in the ecclesiastical and political assemblies of medieval England. The second study demonstrated how the proxy system was perfected in the upper house during the reign of Henry VIII and how the Crown benefited from that system. The ensuing article concerns proctorial representation during the crucial years of the Edwardian Reformation. Because of the brief period under consideration — only six years — it seemed best to cast the study in an analytical rather than a chronological framework. The first section deals with the general characteristics of proctorial representation in mid-Tudor times; the second and third sections cover the spiritual and temporal lords, respectively; and the fourth section treats the relationship between the proxy system and conciliar government.IKnowledge of the proxy system in the mid-sixteenth-century House of Lords remains somewhat fragmentary and limited in scope. A satisfactory treatment of the subject does not exist. Constitutional and legal historians have paid little attention to proxies and less to the procedure governing their use in the upper house. As one might expect, Bishop Stubbs dealt with proxies in medieval Parliaments and correctly associated them with parliamentary privileges, but at the same time he concluded that “its history has not yet been minutely traced.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-76
Author(s):  
Emma Engdahl

Against the backdrop of contemporary sociological theories of love, this article explores the disappearance of the other in contemporary love relationships by focusing on the relationship between love and depression. The aim of the article is twofold: first, to provide a theoretical framework to be able to grasp in what ways the other is threatened with erosion in contemporary love relationships and why this may cause depression; second, to exemplify it with empirical data consisting of human documents such as novels, interviews, sms- and messenger-correspondence. The first section, excluding the introduction, consists of methodological reflections. The second section introduces Hegel’s thinking on love and discusses the perception of it by thinkers such as Honneth, Sartre, and Beauvoir, as well as its parallels with Giddens’s idea on confluent love as a new egalitarian paradigm for equality in intimate relationships. The third section is mainly devoted to Kristeva’s theory of the melancholic-depressive composite, but also introduces Illouz’s concept of autotelic desire. In the fourth section, Han’s idea of “the erosion of difference” and Bauman’s thinking on “the broken structure of desire” are discussed in relation to the use of Tinder in contemporary culture. The fifth section consists of an analysis of excerpts from contemporary love novels and interviews that illustrates the disappearance of the other in contemporary love relationships. In the sixth section, a number of longer passages from a messenger conversation, ranging over a couple of months in duration, is reproduced and interpreted, mainly by help of Kristeva’s thinking, in order to make visible the relation between the erosion of the other and melancholic depression. The article ends with a short conclusion.


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