Realpolitik Influences

Author(s):  
Eric K. Yamamoto

This chapter identifies realpolitik influences on the implementation of the proposed method for judicial review. It dispels the formalist notion that the judicial embrace of the method—any method—will itself assure its faithful operation. The chapter acknowledges the importance of judicial methods both for case adjudication and for judicial legitimacy. But, in light of the “flux and pressure of contemporary events,” it also identifies a crucial role for legal advocates and the American populace. It posits that careful judicial scrutiny in practice often results from a ragged combination of law and politics. This chapter’s final section tightly illustrates the impact of this kind of advocacy and pressure in Dr. Wen Ho Lee’s national security prosecution debacle. Dr. Lee’s story uplifts the realpolitik insight that there “is a symbiotic relationship between politics and law, in which civil society’s appeal to law informs politics, and that politics reinforces the law’s appeal.”

Author(s):  
Eric K. Yamamoto

This chapter discusses the task of methodology. How might a court ascertain the appropriate mode of review in a given security-liberty case, and how might the court effectively undertake that review? The chapter suggests a calibrated judicial review method that affords the government wide latitude in most national security matters, with courts adopting a posture of substantial deference. However, when the government claims pressing public necessity to legitimate measures that curtail fundamental liberties of citizens or noncitizens, careful judicial scrutiny takes over. With Korematsu as backdrop, the method delineates the mechanics for selecting the appropriate type of review in a given case. In doing so, it speaks to a judicial review conundrum generated by a briar patch of unexplained boilerplate language in numerous case opinions—opinions that first recite “the court’s substantial deference” to the executive on security matters, then follow with “but the court is duty-bound to protect constitutional liberties,” implicating careful scrutiny.


Author(s):  
Yvonne Tew

Emergency powers and national security laws have long been features of a powerful state in Malaysia and Singapore. In addition to extensive emergency regimes, these states have employed security laws authorizing preventive detention as well as public order statutes regulating expression and assembly. Courts have traditionally been highly passive in scrutinizing government actions taken in the name of national security or public order, refusing to assess whether the vast powers wielded by the executive were reasonable. This chapter makes the case for greater judicial scrutiny over whether government restrictions on individual liberties are justified. Proportionality analysis offers a rigorous, yet flexible, framework that courts can use to engage directly with the government’s justifications of national security and public order. And on some occasions, courts may have to employ a constitutional basic structure doctrine to strike down legislative attempts to pass statutes or constitutional amendments aimed at removing judicial review or eroding institutional safeguards. These judicial mechanisms would aid courts in the critical, yet sensitive, endeavor to balance security and liberty.


Author(s):  
Eric K. Yamamoto

This chapter distills the book’s responses to two pivotal questions. If a sweeping, politically driven curtailment of fundamental liberties happens again, would the Korematsu majority’s highly deferential 1944 approach be expanded to new purposes to legitimize present-day transgressions of essential democratic liberties? Or would the courts undertake watchful care over those liberties by scrutinizing the government’s claim of necessity so that the talismanic incantation of national security itself does not enervate the judicial role? The chapter coalesces prior themes by first linking rubber-stamp judicial passivity to the deeply problematic shadow side of national security law; second by highlighting Korematsu and its coram nobis reopening as a cautionary tale; third, by repudiating Korematsu’s unconditional deference to the government’s claim of necessity; fourth by implicating judicial legitimacy in affirming Korematsu’s stated commitment to careful judicial scrutiny; and finally, by moving toward justice by breaking a key link in the chain of enduring injustice.


Author(s):  
Thomas Christiansen

This chapter discusses whether the European Union has a distinctive take on, and may make a particular contribution to, global governance, as well as the reverse image of the impact that global governance has in the development of integration in Europe. This includes a focus on collective norms and interests as expressed through common institutions, policies, and activities. In doing so, the chapter compares and contrasts the evolution of a supranational order in Europe with the growth of global regimes and the emergence of a multipolar world, and explores the nature of the EU’s relationships with other global powers and regions. In a final section, the chapter asks whether the EU’s relationship with global developments is best seen as a test-bed for new ideas, procedures, and concepts; a construction for the defence of a privileged way of life; or an archaic remnant of a different era.


ICL Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-306
Author(s):  
Danushka S Medawatte

AbstractIn this paper, I attempt to examine the evolution of judicial review of legislation in Sri Lanka with a view to better understanding how it has impacted the democratic fabric and constitutional matrix of Sri Lanka. The impact that judicial review of legislation has had on rights jurisprudence, enhancement of democracy, prevention of persecution against selected groups are analysed in this paper in relation to the Ceylon Constitutional Order in Council of 1946 (‘Soulbury’ Constitution) and the two autochthonous constitutions of Sri Lanka of 1972 and 1978. The first part of the paper comprises of a descriptive analysis of judicial review of legislation under the three Constitutions. This is expected to perform a gap filling function in respect of the lacuna that exists in Sri Lankan legal literature in relation to the assessment of the trends pertaining to judicial review of legislation in Sri Lanka. In the second part of the paper, I have analysed decided cases of Sri Lanka to explore how the judiciary has responded to legislative and executive power, and has given up or maintained judicial independence. In this respect, I have also attempted to explore whether the judiciary has unduly engaged in restraint thereby impeding its own independence. The third part of the paper evaluates the differences in technique and stance the judiciary has adopted when reviewing draft enactments of the national legislature and when reviewing draft or enacted statutes of Provincial Councils. From a comparative constitutional perspective, this assessment is expected to provide the background that is essential in understanding the island nation’s current constitutional discourse, transitional justice process, and its approach to human rights.


Author(s):  
Thomas A. Lumpkin

SynopsisThe aquatic fern Azolla has a symbiotic relationship with an N2-fixing cyanobacterium. Fanners in China and Vietnam have used Azolla for centuries as a green manure for rice and as fodder for pigs, ducks and fish. Chinese researchers have been studying Azolla since the early 1950's but many of their achievements are unknown outside China because of language and other communication problems. This article reviews current Chinese Azolla research and focuses on the impact of newly introduced Azolla species in the areas of field application, use of spores, and isolation of the N2-fixing symbiont.


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