THE POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW

2018 ◽  
pp. 98-98
Modern Italy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osvaldo Croci ◽  
Sonia Lucarelli

The international role and status of Italy among international powers has been an issue of debate in both the political and the academic context. What has never been systematically investigated is the way in which other powers with which Italy interacts in institutional contexts perceive Italy and its international role. It is the aim of this special issue to provide an overview of how Italy is perceived abroad. This introduction explains why it is worth looking at international images of Italy, and sums up the findings of the research project.


Author(s):  
Alessandra Silveira ◽  
José Gomes André ◽  

This paper includes the exam of a Ph.D thesis about James Madison’s political philosophy, as well as the answers presented by the candidate to several criticai observations. Various themes are considered, though always surrounding Madison’s work: the peculiar characteristics of his federalism, the relationship between the idea of human nature and the elaboration of political models, the political and constitutional controversies that Madison entangled with several figures from its time (namely Alexander Hamilton), the problem of “judicial review” and the place of “constitutionality control” taken from a reflexive and institutional point of view, and other similar themes.


1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Gavison

A discussion of the role of courts in Israel today demands some introductory remarks. The Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Court enjoy great acclaim and respect within Israel and abroad, but have recently come under attack from a variety of sources. These attacks are often confused, and many of them are clearly motivated by narrow partisan interests and an inherent objection to the rule of law and judicial review. But these motives do not necessarily weaken the dangers which the attacks pose to the legitimacy of the courts in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, in Israel's public life. The fact that in some sectors extremely harsh criticism of the court is seen to be an electoral boost, testifies to the serious and dangerous nature of the threat. This situation creates a dilemma for those who want a strong and independent judiciary, believing it is essential for freedom and democracy, but who also believe that, during the last two decades, the courts have transgressed limits they should respect. The dilemma becomes especially acute when the political echo sounds out in one's criticism, and when one is part of the group that believes that the legal and the judicial systems have made some contribution to the prevalence of these hyperbolic and dangerous attacks, as I am.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This book is about the stunning birth and growth of judicial review in the civil law world, since 1945. In Volume I of this two-volume series, I showed that judicial review was born and grew in common law G-20 constitutional democracies and in Israel primarily: (1) when there is a need for a federalism or a separation of powers umpire, (2) when there is a rights from wrongs dynamic, (3) when there is borrowing, and (4) when the political structure of a country’s institutions leaves space within which the judiciary can operate. The countries discussed in Volume I were the following: (1) the United States, (2) Canada, (3) Australia, (4) India, (5) Israel, (6) South Africa, and (7) the United Kingdom....


2021 ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Andrei Marmor

This chapter describes the tension between democratic decision-making procedures and constitutional judicial review. It shows that the liberal values that justify a democratic self-government may also vindicate some limits on majoritarian decision-making procedures, but not necessarily in the form of the current constitutional regimes. The chapter argues that constitutional courts are not a necessary feature of a liberal regime. It also acknowledges that democratic decision-making has many defects. These defects concern the fate of persistent vulnerable minorities, the tendency towards short-sightedness, a similar tendency to downplay people's rights and liberties for the sake of greater economic gains or in the force of external threats, and finally the dangers of populism and anti-liberal politics gaining ground within a democratic system. The chapter then depicts courts as essentially conservative institutions which are not — and cannot be — as counter-majoritarian as depicted by legal scholars, mainly because their legitimacy and the acceptance of their decisions depends on the people. It contends that the acceptance and efficacy of judicial review is context dependent, but that some fights still need to be fought in the political, not the legal arena.


2019 ◽  
pp. 219-242
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont

This chapter articulates a participatory defense of the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. This defense is based on an analysis of the democratic significance of citizens’ right to legal contestation. Against the widespread view of judicial review as an expertocratic shortcut that requires citizens to blindly defer to the political decisions of judges, the analysis shows that the institutions of judicial review empower citizens to make effective use of their right to participate in ongoing political struggles for determining the proper scope of their fundamental rights and freedoms. This is true no matter how idiosyncratic their fellow citizens may think their interests, views, and values are. By securing citizens’ right to legal contestation, judicial review offers citizens a way to avoid having to blindly defer to the decisions of their fellow citizens. This is the case insofar as it offers an institutional venue where they can call their fellow citizens to account by effectively requesting that proper reasons are publicly offered to justify the laws and policies to which they all are subject. It is in virtue of this communicative power that all citizens can participate as political equals in the ongoing process of shaping and forming a considered public opinion that supports the political decisions that they can all own and identify with—just as the democratic ideal of self-government requires.


Author(s):  
Ian Loveland

This chapter discusses the substantive grounds of judicial review: illegality, irrationality, and proportionality. Illegality covers the following: excess of power; the relevant/irrelevant considerations doctrine; unlawful delegation of power; unlawful fettering of power; and the estoppel doctrine. Irrationality is also concerned with the substantive content of a government decision, but focuses on the political or moral rather than (in the strict sense) legal character of the decision. Proportionality review can be defined as a constitutional device that requires the courts to accept that the boundaries of moral consensus within which government bodies are confined are discernibly less broad in substantive terms than those that apply in respect of irrationality-based review.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-238
Author(s):  
L.W. Sumner

The complaint is a familiar one: unelected, politically unaccountable judges are using their powers of judicial review to subvert the democratic process by shaping public policy in accordance with their own personal moral/political views. It is tempting to dismiss this complaint as the grumbling of those, usually (though not invariably) on the political right, who have been disaffected by court decisions with which they personally disagree. But this temptation must be resisted, since the critics of judicial review, such as Jeremy Waldron, raise important issues about the role of judges in a democratic political system. In his recent book A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review, Wil Waluchow responds to the critics' arguments. This Critical Notice outlines his response and assesses its adequacy.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Oldmixon

Churches are at the fulcrum of religious politics, and as church leaders, religious elites have an important role to play in the political milieu. They possess many of the resources associated with potent activism, but more importantly their job is to provide guidance to participants in a vast voluntary network. They can engage in agenda setting, encourage the faithful to apply their religious values to political engagement, and create opportunities to learn civic skills. Even so, religious leaders are subject to influence even as they try to exercise influence. In the foreground, religious leaders have a predictable set of goals, the substance of which varies by race, ethnicity, gender, and social theology. In the background, religious leaders pursue their goals in different sociodemographic and institutional contexts. The political behavior of religious leaders, then, is the product of background and foreground balancing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1228-1256
Author(s):  
Malthe Hilal-Harvald

AbstractMultiple laws and regulations in Western Europe have been enacted on the premise that headscarves and face veils constitute an existential threat to the constitutional identity of the respective legal systems. Thus, the logic of militant democracy as a justification for restricting fundamental rights have been applied in order to restrict the freedom to manifest one’s religion. Yet, the politicymakers claiming to defend the constitutional identity through militant democracy have not been able to prove the existence of a concrete, imminent threat against the state from the women who wear headscarves or face veils. Nonetheless, the European judiciaries have taken the political claim at face value and allowed the restrictions without compelling the political decision-makers to provide substantive justifications. Thus, the cases of headscarves and face veils offer a prism, through which we can study fundamental paradoxes of liberal democracy and constitutionalism.


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