scholarly journals Book Review: Moseneke D All Rise: A Judicial Memoir (Pickado Africa Johannesburg 2020)

Author(s):  
Hoolo 'Nyane

The contribution is the review published by former Deputy Chief Justice, Dikhang Moseneke, about his illustrious 15-year term in the Constitutional Court as both the judge and Deputy Chief Justice. The book uniquely provides a rare window into the dynamics of judicial decision-making at the apex court. Often, legal academics only interact with the judiciary through the judgements. Yet, Moseneke gives the reader much more to the judicial decision-making process than just the judgements. The book further traverses one of the most controversial aspects of the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence, such as same-sex marriages, succession to chieftainship.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Smekal ◽  
Jaroslav Benák ◽  
Monika Hanych ◽  
Ladislav Vyhnánek ◽  
Štěpán Janků

The book studies other than purely legal factors that influence the Czech Constitutional Court judges in their decision-making. The publication is inspired by foreign models of judicial decision-making and discusses their applicability in the Czech environment. More specifically, it focuses, for example, on the influence of the judge’s personality, collegiality, strategic decision-making or the impact of public opinion and the media. The book is based mainly on interviews with current constitutional judges.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1167-1181
Author(s):  
Laura M. Henderson

AbstractThe cases challenging the European Stability Mechanism in Eurozone creditor states show the concern courts have with protecting and promoting democratic contestation. This Article shows how John Hart Ely’s theory of process-based review provides the theoretical basis for understanding how attention to democratic contestation contributes to the legitimacy of courts reviewing legislation against constitutional norms. By focusing on promoting democratic procedures, Ely argues that courts can avoid substantive decisions that are best left to the legislature. Yet, as my discussion of the constitutional theory of constituent and constituted powers shows, no form of constituted power can avoid some exercise of constituent power. In other words, even a process-based approach cannot avoid substantive judgments. The legitimacy of these decisions depends on the availability of avenues for contestation in the judicial decision-making process itself.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-144
Author(s):  
Josep M Tamarit Sumalla ◽  
Mª Jesús Guardiola Lago ◽  
Albert Padró-Solanet ◽  
Patricia Hernández-Hidalgo

This article analyses the criminal justice system’s treatment of those sexual offences against children of which it is made aware. The findings reported in this article draw on a quantitative study based on data ( n = 97) taken from judicial files from a province of Catalonia, Spain. The study examines prosecution, trial and conviction rates, analysing the possible variables involved to provide a better understanding of the reasons behind the successful prosecution of complaints made. The study points to a low rate of prosecution, similar to other studies carried out in English-speaking countries. This leads us to conclude that differences in legal systems do not give rise to significant differences in dealing with cases. There is no evidence that a legalistic system such as that of Spain acts as a restraining element against the influence of non-legal factors in the judicial decision-making process. However, similarities with other studies are not found with regards to some factors associated with it. The findings provide no confirmation of the hypothesis that the Spanish criminal justice system is particularly reluctant to prosecute cases of intrafamilial victimization.


2006 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Bevan Marten

This article is a book review of E W Thomas The Judicial Process (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005) (414 + xxvi pages) Hardback NZ$180. In his belief that too many judges are simply 'muddling along' without a sound conception of what their role entails, Justice Thomas (a retired judge) has written a book putting forward a theory of judicial decision-making. The book represents the development of Thomas' thinking since an earlier monograph on the subject, but the two pillars on which he bases his theory remain unchanged: that the demands of justice in the individual case, and the requirement that the law meets society's reasonable needs, be at the forefront of every judgment. Marten notes that the book is deliberately pitched at a level that many people can read and enjoy. On the whole, Marten states that the book is a well-written and engaging book by one of New Zealand's most distinctive judges.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Abdul Malek

<p><i>Although the apparent hyperbole about the promises of AI algorithms has successfully entered upon the judicial precincts; it has also procreated some robust concerns spanning from unfairness, privacy invasion, bias, discrimination, and the lack of legitimacy</i><i> to the lack of transparency</i><i> and explainability</i><i>, </i><i>etc.</i><i> Notably, critics have already denounced </i><i>the current use of the </i><i>predictive algorithm in the judicial decision-making process in many ways, and branded them as ethically, legally, and technically distressing.</i><i> So contextually, whereas there is already an ongoing transparency debate on board, this paper attempts to revisit, extend and contribute to such simmering debate with a particular focus from a judicial perspective. Since there is a good cause to preserve and promote trust and confidence in the judiciary as a whole, a searchlight is beamed on exploring how and why justice algorithms ought to be transparent as to their outcomes, with a sufficient level of explainability, interpretability, intelligibility, and contestability. This paper also ends up delineating the tentative paths to do away with black-box effects, and suggesting the way out for the use of algorithms in the high-stake areas like the judicial settings.</i></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Whalen-Bridge

Unrepresented parties in litigation struggle with legal doctrine and puzzle over procedure. Judges provide some assistance in court, but they must exercise restraint so as not to raise questions of bias or favouritism. How do judges manage these interactions in the decision-making process? This article examines sample cases from one common law jurisdiction, Singapore, to identify the litigant in person (LIP) typologies in court-LIP interactions. There are likely a number of typologies that guide a court’s assessment and response to an LIP, but this article focuses on the typologies most relevant to judicial decision-making on legal issues, legal knowledge and credibility. Because legal knowledge and credibility typologies help courts evaluate LIPs, they assist courts to make decisions regarding unrepresented parties and allow cases to proceed to judgment. However, the typologies are not able to completely address the deficiencies LIPs bring to the dispute resolution process.


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