scholarly journals Surveillance, Secrecy, and the Search for Meaningful Accountability

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudha N. Setty
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Surveillance Programs ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Surveillance

Published: Sudha Setty, Surveillance, Secrecy, and the Search for Meaningful Accountability, 51 STAN. J. INT'L L. 69 (2015). One of the most intractable problems in the debate around maintaining the rule of law while combating the threat of terrorism is the question of secrecy and transparency. In peacetime, important tenets to the rule of law include transparency of the law, limits on government power, and consistency of the law as applied to individuals in the policy. Yet the post-9/11 decision-making by the Bush and Obama administrations is characterized with excessive secrecy that stymies most efforts to hold the government accountable for its abuses. Executive branch policy with regard to detention, interrogation, targeted killing and surveillance are kept secret, and that secrecy has been largely validated by a compliant judiciary that has dismissed almost all suits challenging human and civil rights abuses resulting from counterterrorism programs. Efforts by Congress to engage in meaningful oversight have met with mixed results; in the area of government surveillance, such efforts have been fruitless without the benefit of leaked information on warrantless surveillance by government insiders, since the executive branch has generally refused to make public vital aspects of its surveillance programs in ways that could give oversight efforts more muscle. At the same time, the executive branch has consistently defended the legality and efficacy of these surveillance programs. This paper considers the nature and effect of the warrantless surveillance infrastructure constructed in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and discusses surveillance-related powers and accountability measures in the United Kingdom and India as comparative examples. Through this analysis, this paper questions whether accountability over government abuses in this area exists in an effective form, or if governments have constructed a post-9/11 legal architecture with regard to surveillance that engenders excessive secrecy and renders accountability mechanisms largely meaningless.

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

scholarly journals UNFORESEEABILITY AND ABUSE OF CRIMINAL LAW DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN SERBIA

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veljko Turanjanin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The author deals with the problem of criminal measures and sanctions in the legislation of the Republic of Serbia during the Covid-19 pandemic. The executive branch of the government declared a state of emergency in the Republic of Serbia in March 2020. At the same time the so-called Crisis Headquarter was established with the authority to impose measures of criminal-legal nature. During the two-month state of emergency, through the Crisis Headquarter, the executive branch of the government was changing criminal laws and sanctions at an almost daily basis. It is debatable whether such laws meet the rule of law and the European Court of Human Rights standards. Many citizens failed to adapt their behavior to the imposed measures. On the one hand, the courts have fallen into the trap of double punishment, both for a crime and for a misdemeanor. On the other hand, justifications of the courts’ decisions are also questionable, especially those containing references to statements made by members of the crisis team through the media. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court didn’t rule on any of the numerous requests for constitutional review, but in September it came out with the view that since the state of emergency was over, its decision was unnecessary. The paper is comprised of several units. In the first place, the author explains the process of legal changes by analyzing all the laws and rules that were passed by the end of 2020, as well as data related to the punishment of residents whose behavior was not in accordance with existing legal solutions. Bearing in mind the standards of the rule of law and the European Court of Human Rights, the author then explains that the measures implemented by the Serbian authorities do not meet the basic required criteria, primarily the foreseeability of the law, as well as that the laws were abused for the purpose of the election campaign. The special attention is paid to curfews and the complete ban on leaving homes for senior citizens well as ban of contacting with the family members, and then the lockdown of the rest of the population. The actions taken by the authorities during the epidemic resulted in violation of human rights of their citizens, and experience shows that the only court that citizens will be able to turn to will be the European Court of Human Rights. The author believes that with this understanding of the law and respect for its own citizens, the European Union can only be a distant idea.

PURPOSE, PRINCIPLES AND SPECIFIC FEATURES OF PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE LEGAL CREATION ACTIVITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Shoxrukhkhon Saidov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Making

This article describes the specifics of the law-making process conducted by the prosecutor's office. The purpose and principles of the prosecutor's office's participation in this process have been studied scientifically and theoretically. Taking into account the high relevance of ensuring legality in the law-making process, opinions were expressed about the need for adequate regulation and organization of solving this task by the prosecutor's office at the level of law and legality. The participation of the prosecutor's office in law-making activities contradicts the needs of the population, the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, ensuring the rule of law, promoting the formation of a unified legal space and improving legislation, ensuring consistency legal instructions, systematization of legislation, scientifically based analysis are aimed at reducing the influence of bureaucratic interests and preventing the inclusion of factors that generate corruption in normative acts and their projects

scholarly journals Furtive Encryption: Power, Trust, and the Constitutional Cost of Collective Surveillance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Vagle
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Electronic Communications ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Surveillance Programs ◽  
Power Trust ◽  
Government Surveillance ◽  
The Right

Recent revelations of heretofore secret U.S. government surveillance programs have sparked national conversations about their constitutionality and the delicate balance between security and civil liberties in a constitutional democracy. Among the revealed policies asserted by the National Security Agency (NSA) is a provision found in the “minimization procedures” required under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. This provision allows the NSA to collect and keep indefinitely any encrypted information collected from domestic communications — including the communications of U.S. citizens. That is, according to the U.S. government, the mere fact that a U.S. citizen has encrypted her electronic communications is enough to give the NSA the right to store that data until it is able to decrypt or decode it.Through this provision, the NSA is automatically treating all electronic communications from U.S. citizens that are hidden or obscured through encryption — for whatever reason — as suspicious, a direct descendant of the “nothing-to-hide” family of privacy minimization arguments. The ubiquity of electronic communication in the United States and elsewhere has led to the widespread use of encryption, the vast majority of it for innocuous purposes. This Article argues that the mere encryption by individuals of their electronic communications is not alone a basis for individualized suspicion. Moreover, this Article asserts that the NSA’s policy amounts to a suspicionless search and seizure. This program is therefore in direct conflict with the fundamental principles underlying the Fourth Amendment, specifically the protection of individuals from unwarranted government power and the establishment of the reciprocal trust between citizen and government that is necessary for a healthy democracy.

scholarly journals The Rule of Law in the Middle East and the Islamic World

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 167-171
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fadel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Average Length ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Varying Length ◽  
The Government

This work grew out of a series of lectures that were delivered over atwo-year period between 1996 and 1998 at the Centre of Islamic andMiddle Eastern Law (CIMEL) at the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies (SOAS), University of London, on the genera] subject of the rule oflaw in the Middle East and Islamic countries. Subsequently, materials wereadded dealing particularly with issues relating to human rights law. Thecontributors to this work are a combination of legal academics, human rights activists, lawyers and judges, who hale from various countries in theArab world, Iran, the United States, Great Britain and Germany.There are a total of fourteen separate chapters, of varying length andquality. The book is not lengthy - including notes and authors’ biographies,it is 180 pages long. The average length of each chapter is between ten andfifteen pages. Despite the diversity of countries surveyed, all the essays areconcerned with generic questions regarding the rule of law, whether in atheoretical sense, viz., whether the notion that legitimate governmentalaction is limited to those acts that are deemed lawful by a pre-existing setor rules, or in a practical sense, viz., assuming that the formal legal regimeof a given state recognizes the rule of law in a theoretical sense, whetherthe coercive apparatus of the state in fact recognizes legal limitations onits conduct.Perhaps the most interesting (it is certainly the most lengthy, at 35 pages),and most important, essay in this work is the very fiit one, authored byAdel Omar Sherif, an Egyptian judge, wherein the author provides a digestof the landmark decisions of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court.While the work can be criticized for taking on the appearance of a meresurvey of decisions, without taking a critical perspective to the Court’sprecedents, it is nonetheless a very valuable contribution for those lawyersand scholars who cannot read Arabic but nonetheless wish to gain insightinto Egypt’s legal culture. The modest task of relating the decisions ofEgypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court is especially important given thecliches regarding the absence of effective judicial institutions in the Arabworld. Sherifs contribution effectively dispels that myth. His article revealsthe Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court to be a vibrant institution thattakes its constitutional duties seriously, and discharges those duties withintegrity, and when it finds that the government has acted unlawfully, it willstrike down the offensive legislation, or rule against the government ...

scholarly journals Magna Carta And Its Significant Role For Rule Of Law In The Republic Of Macedonia

SEEU Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-98
Author(s):  
Ivana Shumanovska-Spasovska ◽  
Konstantin Bitrakov
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Republic Of Macedonia ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Republic

Abstract One of the most important and famous historical documents from the English legal and constitutional legacy is the Magna Carta Libertatum. Signed and sealed in the year 1215 the Magna Carta is further on viewed as the sole inception of the idea of limiting the power of the ruler trough legal rules. That limitation is to be made with legal rules that are binding for everyone, even the monarch. Therefore, the Great Charter is viewed as the first document signed by a monarch with which, the principle of supremacy of the law is set out. That supremacy of the law has been further on developed by eminent scholars and practitioners, eventually leading to the development of the concept of rule of law. Rule of law, as a concept, means that the royal authority (or the executive branch of power) is going to be inferior to the law. However, this concept means a lot more than simply that. Unlike the principle of legal state, the rule of law is closely linked to justice, separation of powers and legal certainty. All of these concepts are actually prerequisites for its existence. That is why each of them is separately examined and elaborated. Furthermore, as one of the most important principles the rule of law had a great influence on the constitutional (and legal) systems around the world. Since the Republic of Macedonia strives to become a democratic state where the rule of law is established and developed it is important to elaborate the influence of this principle in it. Therefore, the research gravitates over the principle of rule of law in the Republic of Macedonia.

scholarly journals Implementasi Penerapan Undang-Undang Nomor 13 Tahun 2006 tentang Perlindungan Saksi dan Korban (Sudi di Polres Kuningan)

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haris Budiman dan Gios Adhyaksa
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Trial Judge ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Operational Costs ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Unwritten Law

Article 1 (1) of the 1945 Constitution states that, Indonesia is the law of the State in the form of Republic. Therefore, the provisions of the applicable legislation and set the life of the Indonesian nation comes from the law, whether written or unwritten law. One runway is used as basic guidelines in order to achieve justice for all Indonesian people, especially in the field of law, set forth in Article 27 paragraph (1) of the Act of 1945, which reads, "All citizens are equal before the law and government and must uphold the rule of law and without exception. " Protection of witnesses reporting the crime of pornography, the identity of a witness, obviously very secret and confidential examined by the police, even on a trial judge has no right to bring a witness, before the trial because the reporter's identity confidentiality is strictly protected by the Law No. 44 Year 2008 on pornography.  Factors that became penghamabat the police to provide protection against the crime of pornography reporting, that one of the eligibility period and the cost to hold the protection of witnesses and victims must require substantial funds, although basically the police have been very ready to implement the law , subject to the government in terms of a special budget for the program of protection, especially for operational costs in the field.  Keywords: Crime, Pornography, Witness, Protection. 

Judicial Review of Executive Power: Legality, Rationality and Reasonableness (Part 1)

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-152
Author(s):  
Chuks Okpaluba
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Administrative Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Many

Early in the life of the South African democratic dispensation, the Constitutional Court distinguished the conduct of the President as the head of the executive branch of government from an administrative action. However, it held that executive conduct was, like all exercise of public power, constrained by the constitutional principles of legality and rationality. So, as a necessary incident of the rule of law, the executive may not exercise powers or perform duties not conferred upon it by the Constitution and the law. The cases decided since then demonstrate in practical and theoretical terms the democratic aphorism that no one is above the law and everyone is subject to the Constitution and the law. In the process, the Constitutional Court has entertained appeals for the review of executive powers such as where, inter alia, the President had acted on a wrong advice or terminated the appointment of the head of the National Intelligence Agency; the legality of Ministerial Regulations and of the rationality of the presidential appointment of the Director of the National Prosecuting Authority. The role of reasonableness as a ground of review of executive conduct rather than administrative action has been demonstrated in the many cases where the distinction has been made between the rationality test and the reasonableness test. The conclusion, therefore, is that, through their interpretation of the Constitution and review of executive powers, the courts have developed a code of principles regarding the rule of law, good government, and democracy.

Judicial Deference in Foreign Relations

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan I. Charney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Law

Disputes with foreign policy implications have often been brought to the federal courts. These cases call attention to the tension between the authority of the political branches to conduct the foreign relations of the United States and the authority of the courts to render judgments according to the law. How this tension is resolved, in turn, bears directly on the commitment of the United States to the rule of law.

scholarly journals Rule of Law and Constitutionalism in Nigerian Democracy: A Critical Relativism Discuss in the Context of International Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-334
Author(s):  
Isaac O. C. Igwe
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Judicial Procedures

The synthesis of rule of law enthrones democracy, justice and goes with such characteristics as liberty, freedom, and the restoration of the dignity of man. The rule of law is predicated upon absolute autonomy being accorded to the judicial arms of the government of any society, state, or country. Thus, the application and interpretation of the law must be under the control of impartial courts adjudicating within the ambit of fair judicial procedures. The dialectics of power and the guiding principles of governance are anchored in the constitution which enshrines the provisions of enforceable laws. The law is the cardinal power of a nation, a direction for due process, and a guiding principle for good governance. The age of enlightenment and the middle ages have a special place for the rule of law as opposed to tyranny otherwise, life could have been chaos. The role of law cannot be left in isolation of democracy as both are interlaced as core universal principles of the civilised world. This paper will explore the rule of law as a paramount factor in constitutionalism, idealism, and realistic principles of the law of any given society. The treatise will in general terms discuss the principles of rule of law and articulate it with the hitherto Nigerian democracy. It will conclude with the argument that complete independence of the judiciary in Nigeria is paramount to ensure proper implementation of rule of law for a better Nigeria. Keywords: Rule of Law; Constitutionalism; Independent Judiciary; Tyranny; Nigerian Democracy. Rule of Law;

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