Interpreting Constitutions

Interpreting Constitutions
Title Interpreting Constitutions PDF eBook
Author Jeffrey Denys Goldsworthy
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 372
Release 2006-02-09
Genre Law
ISBN 0199274134

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This book describes the constitutions of six major federations and how they have been interpreted by their highest courts, compares the interpretive methods and underlying principles that have guided the courts, and explores the reasons for major differences between these methods and principles. Among the interpretive methods discussed are textualism, purposivism, structuralism and originalism. Each of the six federations is the subject of a separate chapter written by a leading authority in the field: Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Australia), Peter Hogg (Canada), Donald Kommers (Germany), S.P. Sathe (India), Heinz Klug (South Africa), and Mark Tushnet (United States). Each chapter describes not only the interpretive methodology currently used by the courts, but the evolution of that methodology since the constitution was first enacted. The book also includes a concluding chapter which compares these methodologies, and attempts to explain variations by reference to different social, historical, institutional and political circumstances.

Active Liberty

Active Liberty
Title Active Liberty PDF eBook
Author Stephen Breyer
Publisher Vintage
Pages 176
Release 2007-12-18
Genre Political Science
ISBN 0307424618

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A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.

Interpreting State Constitutions

Interpreting State Constitutions
Title Interpreting State Constitutions PDF eBook
Author James A. Gardner
Publisher
Pages 336
Release 2005
Genre Constitutional law
ISBN

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Interpreting State Constitutions examines and proposes a solution to a problem central to contemporary debates over the enforcement of civil liberties: how courts, government officials, and lawyers should go about interpreting the constitutions of the American states. With the Supreme Court's retreat from the aggressive protection of individual rights, state courts have begun to interpret state constitutions to provide broader protection of liberties. This development has reversed the polarity of constitutional politics, as liberals advocate unimpeded state power while conservatives lobby for state subordination to a constitutional law controlled centrally by the Supreme Court. James A. Gardner here lays out the first fully developed theory of subnational constitutional interpretation. He argues that states are integral components of a national system of overlapping and mutually checking authority and that the purpose of this system is to protect liberty and defend against federal domination. The resulting account provides valuable prescriptive advice to state courts, showing them how to fulfill their responsibilities to the federal system in a way that strengthens American constitutional discourse.

On Reading the Constitution

On Reading the Constitution
Title On Reading the Constitution PDF eBook
Author Laurence H. TRIBE
Publisher Harvard University Press
Pages 157
Release 2009-06-30
Genre Political Science
ISBN 0674044452

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Our Constitution speaks in general terms of liberty and property, of the privileges and immunities of citizens, and of the equal protection of the laws--open-ended phrases that seem to invite readers to reflect in them their own visions and agendas. Yet, recognizing that the Constitution cannot be merely what its interpreters wish it to be, this volume's authors draw on literary and mathematical analogies to explore how the fundamental charter of American government should be construed today.

Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution

Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution
Title Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution PDF eBook
Author Jaroslav Pelikan
Publisher Yale University Press
Pages 230
Release 2008-10-01
Genre Law
ISBN 0300130767

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Both the Bible and the Constitution have the status of “Great Code,” but each of these important texts is controversial as well as enigmatic. They are asked to speak to situations that their authors could not have anticipated on their own. In this book, one of our greatest religious historians brings his vast knowledge of the history of biblical interpretation to bear on the question of constitutional interpretation. Jaroslav Pelikan compares the methods by which the official interpreters of the Bible and the Constitution—the Christian Church and the Supreme Court, respectively—have approached the necessity of interpreting, and reinterpreting, their important texts. In spite of obvious differences, both texts require close, word-by-word exegesis, an awareness of opinions that have gone before, and a willingness to ask new questions of old codes, Pelikan observes. He probes for answers to the question of what makes something authentically “constitutional” or “biblical,” and he demonstrates how an understanding of either biblical interpretation or constitutional interpretation can illuminate the other in important ways.

Interpreting Constitutions

Interpreting Constitutions
Title Interpreting Constitutions PDF eBook
Author Charles J. G. Sampford
Publisher Federation Press
Pages 292
Release 1996
Genre Law
ISBN 9781862872417

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Constitutions can be viewed as the road map of liberal democracies. And like any road map, they need to be constantly reconsidered and redrawn as the territory develops and changes. The contributors undertake this re-interpretation on a number of levels. They examine first the theoretical approaches to constitutional interpretation and then move on to implied rights. There then follows a consideration of the role of the judiciary and parliament in constitutional interpretation, drawing upon a number of examples from around the world.

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States
Title An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States PDF eBook
Author Charles A. Beard
Publisher Courier Corporation
Pages 338
Release 2012-03-08
Genre History
ISBN 0486140458

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This classic study — one of the most influential in the area of American economic history — questioned the founding fathers' motivations and prompted new perceptions of the supreme law of the land.