scholarly journals Corporations and constitutional guarantees

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 1125-1152
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Foster

Certain constitutional guarantees are now clearly available to corporations, under the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, in the areas of Fundamental Freedoms and Legal Rights. Ambiguous terminology in the provisions dealing with Mobility and Equality Rights leaves the status of corporate applicants uncertain. The rationale of Big M may guarantee constitutional protection to corporations as indirect beneficiaries of rights to which they have no direct access. Whereas in the case of the Canadian Charter, responsability for the clarification of the scope and thereby of the political and social impact of the guarantees is likely to remain with the courts, an alternative solution may be available in Quebec. Clarification and/or reconsideration of the objectives of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, as they are defined through the identification of its beneficiaries, could take place in the context of general constitutional review.

2021 ◽  
pp. 297-316
Author(s):  
Matthias Goldmann

While human rights discourse became fundamental for challenging austerity in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, in historical perspective, such a role of human rights represents the exception rather than the rule. Human rights discourse in the context of sovereign debt-induced austerity has varied enormously over time. Far from reflecting progress, its history reveals changing paradigms of human rights law. This chapter focuses on one of these paradigm shifts occurring at the turn from the 1970s to the 1980s. In the 1970s, newly independent states invoked human rights mostly to assert their sovereignty and avert international interference. This structural human rights paradigm abruptly disappeared from austerity debates in the 1980s, when the sovereign debt crisis hit the Global South, creating a need for multilateral liquidity assistance. Faced with pressure to reconsider the social impact of structural adjustment programmes, the International Monetary Fund shifted the terms of the debate from ‘human needs’, a human rights-related term, to ‘human capital’. Consequently, at the time when human rights rose to the status of the ‘last utopia’, they ceased to have relevance for austerity. Hence, whether human rights discourse promotes social ends depends on the particular context and time. The chapter ends by proposing a political paradigm of human rights law reflecting this insight.


2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-634
Author(s):  
Israel Doron ◽  
Carole Cox ◽  
Benny Spanier

Abstract Background and Objectives Over the last 2 decades, several international indices have been developed to describe the status of older persons. None, however, have examined their human rights. The International Older Persons’ Human Rights Index (IOPHRI) fills in this gap by analyzing the formal legislative foundation of human rights for older people. The objective of this exploratory study is to examine the IOPHRI while comparing the legislation in 6 countries. Research Design and Methods A comparative international exploratory study comparing the human rights legislation of 6 countries: United States, Chile, Ireland, South Africa, India, and Australia in 5 different human rights domains: constitutional, protection, familial and informal support, planning, and empowerment. Results The findings suggest that the actual relationship between formal human rights of older persons and the real world is complex: for example, while the IOPHRI index places South Africa in first place, it is far behind compared with all other participants in the Global AgeWatch Index (which measures objective elements such as life expectancy at 60, or poverty rates in old age). Discussion and Implications Measuring and indexing human rights of older persons reveal significant methodological issues. Beyond these methodological challenges, comparing the ranking of the IOPHRI to nonlegalistic indices raises significant questions about the relationship between formal human rights and the actual living experiences of older persons.


Author(s):  
Corina Siman ◽  

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms empowers the decision-making and executive body of the Council of Europe, id est the Committee of Ministers, to supervise the execution of the European Court of Human Rights’ case law. The mechanism thus established possesses a certain specificity, which is inherent to the European system of protection of fundamental rights. Therefore, both the political nature of the Committee of Ministers and the elements that form the process of monitoring the implementation of the content of the Strasbourg Court’s judgments and decisions are of interest.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Jane Macpherson

An international consensus of scientific experts is now demanding "immediate action" in response to the environmental, climate, and biodiversity crises. But are our legal and regulatory frameworks equipped to respond to the rapid pace of environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change? What incidence is there, transnationally, of laws that seek to protect the Earth from the humans that inhabit it? In the past few decades, there is a growing social, legal, and political movement towards more ecocentric regulation of the planet, where new laws and institutions seek to protect natural resources for their own intrinsic value. In this paper, I consider recent efforts to protect the rights of rivers in the U.S. and Mexico, which are novel and emerging attempts to discover new pathways for enhanced protection of vulnerable waterways. These attempts are being pragmatically driven from the bottom up to the highest levels of the legislature or judiciary as local communities (and sometimes Indigenous Peoples) become increasingly frustrated with apathetic and complacent governmental responses to environmental challenges, using whatever legal tools and processes are available to them. However, rather than an Earth-centred revolution, efforts to protect the rights of nature are distinctly "human"; as communities appeal to human rights laws, and their enhanced constitutional status, to upset the status quo. There are important lessons to be learned from these experiences in other countries in terms of the ability to entrench transformative environmental protections via constitutional hierarchies and the potential for the rights and interests of humans to be both an enabler of, as well as a threat to, nature's rights.


2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-933
Author(s):  
Marc-André Eissen

The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms came into force on September 1953. In 1959, the European Court of Human Rights began its work which is to apply the Convention to particular cases. Since then, it has delivered 94 judgments. For Canadian Lawyers, since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has come into force, the European Court and its decisions are of particular signifiance. The following article concerns the Court itself, especially the status of its judges. It also concerns the functions, powers and procedures of the Court and lastly relates the spirit with which the Convention has been applied to the National Laws of the Members of the Council of Europe for the past 25 years.


ICL Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Tyulkina

AbstractThis article investigates recent developments in Spain’s anti-terrorism regime, in particular the 2002 Law on Political Parties which introduced a non-criminal procedure to outlaw political parties. The 2002 Law was adopted as a response to the continuing exist­ence of political violence associated with terrorist group ETA. It therefore constitutes part of the national counterterrorism regime. This article argues that the 2002 Law was a leg­islative novelty and that its immediate application to ban the political party Batasuna brought about substantial changes to the existing system of constitutional protection of political freedoms, as well as modifying the established standards of constitutional review of anti-terrorism legislation. Furthermore, the result of the November 2011 Spanish parlia­mentary elections has brought questions on the effectiveness of the 2002 Law and its pos­sible future application to the fore of political and legal discourse. The article concludes that the outcome of the 2002 Law on Political Parties is rather disappointing and suggests that there are lessons other democracies can learn both for their counterterrorism policies and treatment of political parties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanang Nur Wahyudi ◽  
Nynda Fatmawati Octarina

Hak Politik dilindungi hukum, baik secara internasional maupun nsional. secara internasional, hak politik diatur Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) dan International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). hak politik juga dilindungi konsitusi kita dan beberapa peraturan Perundang-Undangan lainnya, serutama Undang-Undang no 39 tahun 1999 tentang Hak Asasi Manusia. Adanya ketentuan yang merupakan syarat untuk mencalonkan diri pada pemilihan yang jelas membatasi bahkan meniadakan hak seseorang untuk ikut serta dalam menggunakan hak azasinya. Hal ini jelas merupakan pelanggaran terhadap hak azasi seseorang, yang dalam hal ini hak politik yang dimiliki oleh seorang mantan narapidana khususnya pada kasus korupsi. Apabila kita mencermati ketentuan UUD 1945, maka seorang mantan narapidana juga sebagai warga negara yang memiliki hak politik yang sama dengan warga negara lainnya. Hak Uji materiel terhadap peraturan yang  bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945, maka kewenangan hak menguji ada pada Mahkamah Konstitusi (MK). Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi memberi kepastian hukum bahwa seorang mantan Narapidana kasus korupsi masih diperbolehkan untuk mencalonkan diri pada pemilihan kepala daerah karena mantan narapidana masih memiliki hak politik sebagai warga negara. Untuk dapat mencalonkan diri pada pemilihan kepala daerah, maka mantan narapidana setelah melewati masa 5 (lima) tahun  selesai menjalani masa hukuman dan telah kembali kepada kehidupan masyarakat sebagaimana kehidupan masyarakat lainnya. Menghormati hak politik mantan narapidana kasus korupsi sebagai pengakuan terhadap hak azasi manusia dalam negara Republik Indonesia yang merupakan hak konstitusional yang diatur dalam UUD Tahun 1945. Kata Kunci : Narapidana, Judisial Review, Hak, Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi ABSTRACTPolitical rights are protected by law, both internationally and nationally. Internationally, political rights are regulated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Political rights are also protected by our constitution and several other laws and regulations, especially Law No. 39 of 1999 concerning Human Rights. There is a provision which is a requirement to run for election which clearly limits and even negates a person's right to participate in exercising their human rights. This is clearly a violation of a person's human rights, which in this case the political rights of an ex-convict, especially in cases of corruption. If we look at the provisions of the 1945 Constitution, an ex-convict is also a citizen who has the same political rights as other citizens. The right to judicial review of regulations that are contrary to the 1945 Constitution, the authority of the right to examine lies with the Constitutional Court (MK). The Constitutional Court's decision provides legal certainty that a former convict in a corruption case is still allowed to run for regional head elections because ex-convicts still have political rights as citizens. To be able to run for regional head elections, ex-convicts after passing through a period of 5 (five) years have finished serving their sentence and have returned to community life as other people's lives. Respect the political rights of ex-convicts of corruption cases as an acknowledgment of human rights in the Republic of Indonesia which are constitutional rights regulated in the 1945 Constitution. Keywords: Prisoners, Judicial Review, Rights, Constitutional Court Decisions


2021 ◽  
pp. 649-660
Author(s):  
Ian Loveland

This chapter addresses the question of whether it is legally possible to entrench legislation in a way that safeguards it from repeal by the traditional ‘simple majority in Commons and Lords plus Royal Assent’ formula; and, if so, under what political circumstances it might legitimately be employed. It argues that the Blair government’s commitment to establishing a pluralist political culture is head and shoulders above any of their twentieth-century predecessors. This is most evident in its devolution legislation as well as in its embrace of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty. The same observation may be made about the Blair government’s promotion of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Yet these initiatives, desirable though they may be, can hardly be seen as engineering a constituent reformation of the political system.


Author(s):  
Ian Loveland

This chapter addresses the question of whether it is legally possible to entrench legislation in a way that safeguards it from repeal by the traditional ‘simple majority in Commons and Lords plus Royal Assent’ formula; and, if so, under what political circumstances it might legitimately be employed. It argues that the Blair government’s commitment to establishing a pluralist political culture is head and shoulders above any of their twentieth-century predecessors. This is most evident in its devolution legislation as well as in its embrace of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty. The same observation may be made about the Blair government’s promotion of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Yet these initiatives, desirable though they may be, can hardly be seen as engineering a constituent reformation of the political system.


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
Theodore Orlin

The drastic changes that have dramatically altered the political fabric of Europe raise significant questions as to the future of the interrelationship of religions with states whose political structure is now in flux. A commitment to pluralism, democracy, and respect for religious belief and practice is easily made. The difficult question is the manner in which it is going to be accomplished and secured. Further, given the often strong interaction between nationalistic goals and religious identity, the call for democracy and human rights were and often are in the mutual interest of the religious establishment and those who have nationalistic agendas. Once the immediate goal has been achieved, and religions are free to function, conceivably there is a potential that adherents of a majority religion can use their political dominance to obtain privileges at the expense of minority beliefs. This is especially true due to the long period of abuse perpetrated by states antagonistic to religion. It is not hard to comprehend a desire to return to the status quo and reimpose conditions that existed prior to the establishment of anti-religious regimes and recreate conditions favorable to a majority religion. This article considers the situation in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.


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