Recovering Lost Ground

2018 ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
A.K. Ganguli
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
The Impact

The impact of the excesses of the Emergency was felt long after it was officially terminated. This essay uncovers how the Emergency impacted judicial appointments. The author discusses how the 1980s have been characterized, in the judgment in the NJAC Case, as a decade where judicial independence was imperilled due to executive interference in the matter of appointments. The author sets the record straight by shedding light on the 1980s, particularly pertaining to the judgment in SP Gupta v. Union of India (1981 Supp SCC 87) (First Judges’ Case). In this essay, the author puts up a defence of this judgment, which is largely seen in academic scholarship as a genuflection of the judges before the executive. With the help of anecdotal examples, this essay tries to untangle the case of the curious eighties, making the larger point that it is a decade not amenable to easy typifying.

scholarly journals Challenging Whiteness at Claremont High School

2021 ◽  
pp. 155545892199320
Author(s):  
Terri Nicol Watson ◽  
Angel Miles Nash
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Teacher Leaders ◽  
Dress Code ◽  
School Policies ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Honor Roll ◽  
The Impact

Ebony Wright was slated to graduate from Claremont High School in the spring. She was on the honor roll, captain of the girls’ varsity softball and swim teams, and recently awarded an academic scholarship to attend a highly ranked university in the fall. Ebony was a “model” student. How she found herself sitting in the principal’s office several weeks before graduation was a shock to everyone. This case study challenges the function of whiteness in school policies. Aspiring school and teacher leaders are provided with the opportunity to consider the impact of a seemingly race-neutral school dress code policy.

Comparative Law in the NJAC Judgment

2018 ◽  
pp. 197-207
Author(s):  
Suhrith Parthasarathy
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
International Experience ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
The Supreme Court

This essay is an overview of the use of comparative law in the NJAC Case, and offers a critique of the Supreme Court’s analysis of comparative law in judicial appointments. The essay argues that the Supreme Court adopted an isolationist approach by shunning international experience from fifteen countries cited before it by the Union of India to drive home the point that executive presence in judicial appointments does not, by itself, impinge upon judicial independence. The author contests the Supreme Court’s cursory dismissal of relevant international experience on the ground that India, with its peculiar set of circumstances cannot replicate the experiences of other nations in judicial appointments. The author argues that this is self-serving and the judgment would have been better served by a surer grasp of comparative law and its rationales.

scholarly journals Never let a Crisis go to Waste: Politics, Personality and Judicial Self-Government in Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1871-1900
Author(s):  
Patrick O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Court System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Independent Mechanism ◽  
Political Patronage ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Government

AbstractAlthough Ireland is often cited as part of the vanguard of countries adopting forms of judicial self-governance in the 1990s, this appearance can be misleading: the Irish judiciary are self-governing only in limited respects. The judge-led Court Service is in charge of court estate, non-judicial personnel and provision of information on the court system to the public. Many key matters – discipline, promotions and deployment – remain largely out of the control of the corporate judiciary. Judicial appointments are significantly at the discretion of the government. In the last decade, there have been significant moves towards a more corporate judiciary and these are reflected in the creation of a judges’ representative body, the Association of Judges of Ireland, and a shadow Judges Council. There are currently proposals to create a new independent mechanism for appointing judges and to create a Judicial Council with a significant role in disciplining the judiciary.The Irish experience highlights the importance of political and cultural factors in establishing and maintaining judicial independence and self-governance. Despite the significant role for the government in judicial appointments, and the presence of a culture of political patronage in these appointments, there is nonetheless a robust culture ofindividualjudicial independence once judges have been appointed. The creation of the Courts Service in 1999 was a significant transfer of administrative power to the judiciary but it was approved without demur by the political branches, who welcomed the depoliticization of controversial decisions about court estate. Conversely, reforms to judicial appointments have been weak because politicians saw value in maintaining a relatively harmless form of political patronage, and proposals for a Judicial Council that have agreed in outline for two decades have yet to be enacted, apparently because they lack sufficient political salience. The defence of judicial independence, and the creation of robust institutional mechanisms for defending it, ultimately requires the goodwill of politicians.

Ideology and Strategy among Politicians: The Case of Judicial Independence

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dror Brenner ◽  
Alon Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Impact

AbstractPoliticians act strategically. In the face of competition they modify their decisions in order to restrict the latitude of their potential successors. On the other hand, politicians have ideological preferences that also affect their decisions. The literature, however, has neglected to fully explore the interaction between these two considerations. This work offers such an analysis, using an empirical investigation of judicial independence as an example. We show that when the interaction between ideological considerations and strategic ones is accounted for, the impact of political competition on the level of judicial independence that politicians prefer – may in fact be opposite to the traditional wisdom.

scholarly journals From Executive Appointment to the Collegium System: The Impact on Diversity in the Indian Supreme Court

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aparna Chandra ◽  
William Hubbard ◽  
Sital Kalantry
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
High Court ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
High Courts ◽  
National Debate ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Indian Supreme Court ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

There has been a national debate raging in India about the system of appointments for Supreme Court and High Court judges. At the founding of the Indian Supreme Court, the executive had primary authority over judicial appointments. In 1993, the Supreme Court created a new system of appointments known as the collegium system, whereby the Chief Justice of India and senior judges of the Supreme Court make new appointments to the Supreme Court as well as the High Courts. In 2014, Parliament amended the Constitution and passed a bill to create a commission to appoint judges, but the Indian Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional.In this article, we ascertain whether the nature of the appointments procedure impacts the biographical and other characteristics of the judges that are eventually selected. We do this by comparing the biographical characteristics of judges appointed by the executive-appointments system (prior to 1993), on the one hand, and the judges appointed by the collegium (on or after 1993) to the Supreme Court of India.We find that both the pre-collegium and the collegium system maintain the geographical and religious diversity of India in the candidates that are appointed. However, both have failed to account for gender diversity. In addition, the path to the Supreme Court appears to have narrowed – typically those who are appointed as judges by the collegium spend longer periods in private practice and on the bench than pre-collegium judges.

Trump will reshape US legal landscape for years

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Federal District ◽  
The United States ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact

Subject The impact of judicial appointments. Significance President Donald Trump is having a dramatic effect on the federal judiciary, the same which in a January 9 California ruling frustrated his aim of ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals scheme that protects immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children. Trump’s most notable success to date is Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court, ensuring a conservative majority there. Trump has also initiated a significant transformation of the federal district and appellate courts towards conservative jurisprudence. Impacts The lack of diversity among Trump’s judicial appointments so far could see mounting distrust of the judiciary and legal system. Trump-appointed judges will likely make conservative judicial decisions against civil and workers’ rights and the environment. The new judges will likely make conservative judgements for business deregulation and on trusts disputes and trade policy. Only if the Democrats take control of the Senate in November will they be able to push for more liberal judicial candidates.

Judicial Appointments in Sri Lanka

2018 ◽  
pp. 255-266
Author(s):  
Rehan Abeyratne
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Eighteenth Amendment

This essay describes the trajectory followed by judicial appointments in Sri Lanka, under its different constitutions, and how each Constitution has been successively less protective of judicial independence, with specific references to the constitutions of 1972 and 1978. The essay attributes much of the erosion of judicial independence to the President being the sole authority for appointment and removal of judges, particularly after the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in 2010. The essay parts with the hope that the coming into power of a new government under President Maithripala Sirisena, and its avowed aim of reversing the excesses perpetrated by the previous government will assist in depoliticizing the judicial appointments process.

4. Judicial Independence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Thompson ◽  
Michael Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
The Public ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
The Relationship

Extracts have been chosen from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the reasoning processes of the courts and to show how legal principles are developed. This chapter examines the notion of judicial independence. It discusses the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and its provisions reforming the office of the Lord Chancellor, establishing a new Supreme Court, and restructuring judicial appointments. Judicial diversity and discipline, along with further change to the judicial appointments process, are also considered. The chapter also considers the accountability of the judiciary to Parliament and the public, and the relationship between judicial independence and parliamentary privilege.

scholarly journals Judicial Self-Government and Judicial Independence: the Political Capture of the General Council of the Judiciary in Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1769-1800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aida Torres Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
General Council ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe General Council of the Judiciary is the main institution of judicial self-government in Spain. It was established to ensure the external independence of the judiciary, and in particular the independence of the judiciary vis-à-vis the executive branch of government. To what extent does the Judicial Council manage to fulfill its goal? First, the evolution of the Judicial Council will be presented in order to understand the principal reforms and reasons behind its creation. Next, the impact of the Judicial Council upon judicial independence, as well as accountability, transparency, and public confidence will be critically examined in order to assess its contribution to judicial legitimacy. In the end, it will be argued that the politicization of the Judicial Council has hindered it from protecting judicial independence from partisan interests, and has contributed to undermining public confidence in the judiciary.

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