Law, Ideology, and Collegiality

Law, Ideology, and Collegiality
Title Law, Ideology, and Collegiality PDF eBook
Author Donald R. Songer
Publisher McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Pages 237
Release 2012
Genre Law
ISBN 077353928X

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In a ground-breaking study on the nature of judicial behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada, Donald Songer, Susan Johnson, C.L. Ostberg, and Matthew Wetstein use three specific research strategies to consider the ways in which justices seek to make decisions grounded in "good law" and to show how these decisions are shaped within a collegial court. The authors use confidential interviews with Supreme Court justices, analysis of their rulings from 1970 to 2005, and measures that tap their perceived ideological tendencies to provide a critical examination of the ideological roots of judicial decision making, uncovering the complexity of contemporary judicial behaviour. Examining judicial behaviour through the lens of three different research strategies grounded in qualitative and quantitative methodologies,Law, Ideology, and Collegialitypresents compelling evidence that political ideology is a key factor in decision making and a prominent source of conflict in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts
Title Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts PDF eBook
Author Benjamin Alarie
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 353
Release 2017-07-25
Genre Law
ISBN 0199397600

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Judicial decision-making may ideally be impartial, but in reality it is influenced by many different factors, including institutional context, ideological commitment, fellow justices on a panel, and personal preference. Empirical literature in this area increasingly analyzes this complex collection of factors in isolation, when a larger sample size of comparative institutional contexts can help assess the impact of the procedures, norms, and rules on key institutional decisions, such as how appeals are decided. Four basic institutional questions from a comparative perspective help address these studies regardless of institutional context or government framework. Who decides, or how is a justice appointed? How does an appeal reach the court; what processes occur? Who is before the court, or how do the characteristics of the litigants and third parties affect judicial decision-making? How does the court decide the appeal, or what institutional norms and strategic behaviors do the judges perform to obtain their preferred outcome? This book explains how the answers to these institutional questions largely determine the influence of political preferences of individual judges and the degree of cooperation among judges at a given point in time. The authors apply these four fundamental institutional questions to empirical work on the Supreme Courts of the US, UK, Canada, India, and the High Court of Australia. The ultimate purpose of this book is to promote a deeper understanding of how institutional differences affect judicial decision-making, using empirical studies of supreme courts in countries with similar basic structures but with sufficient differences to enable meaningful comparison.

Research Handbook on Judicial Politics

Research Handbook on Judicial Politics
Title Research Handbook on Judicial Politics PDF eBook
Author Michael P. Fix
Publisher Edward Elgar Publishing
Pages 497
Release 2024-09-06
Genre Law
ISBN 1035309327

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This timely Research Handbook offers a comprehensive examination of judicial politics, both in the US and across the globe. Taking a broad view of the judiciary in all levels of the court, it examines the present state of the field and raises new questions for future scholarly exploration.

Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada

Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada
Title Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada PDF eBook
Author Matthew E. Wetstein
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Pages 354
Release 2017-06-16
Genre Law
ISBN 1487513089

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Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada is a groundbreaking analysis of the degree to which Supreme Court decisions reflect the changing values of society over the past four decades. Focusing on three key areas of law: environmental disputes, free speech, and discrimination cases, Wetstein and Ostberg provide a revealing analysis of the language used by Supreme Court justices in landmark rulings in order to document the way that value changes are transmitted into the legal and political landscape. Bolstered by a comprehensive and nuanced blend of research methods, Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada offers a sweeping analysis of pre- and post-Charter influences, one that will be of significant interest to political scientists, lawyers, journalists, and anyone interested in the increasingly powerful role of the Supreme Court.

Constitutional Crossroads

Constitutional Crossroads
Title Constitutional Crossroads PDF eBook
Author Kate Puddister
Publisher UBC Press
Pages 521
Release 2022-12-01
Genre Political Science
ISBN 0774867949

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Four decades have passed since the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982. Now it is time to assess its legacy. As Constitutional Crossroads makes clear, the 1982 constitutional package raises a host of questions about a number of important issues, including identity and pluralism, the scope and limits of rights, competing constitutional visions, the relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples, and the nature of constitutional change. This collection brings together an impressive assembly of established and rising stars of political science and law, who not only provide a robust account of the 1982 reform but also analyze the ensuing scholarship that has shaped our understanding of the Constitution. Contributors bypass historical description to offer reflective analyses of different aspects of Canada’s constitution as it is understood in the twenty-first century. With a focus on the themes of rights, reconciliation, and constitutional change, Constitutional Crossroads provides profound insights into institutional relationships, public policy, and the state of the fields of law and politics.

Supermajority Voting in Constitutional Courts

Supermajority Voting in Constitutional Courts
Title Supermajority Voting in Constitutional Courts PDF eBook
Author Cristóbal Caviedes
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Pages 233
Release 2024-08-02
Genre Law
ISBN 1040108458

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This book challenges the wide use of majority rule in many constitutional courts for declaring statutes unconstitutional and argues that these courts should rather perform constitutional review by using supermajority rules. Considering that constitutional courts often tackle hard moral issues, it is questionable whether a bare majority of judges should suffice for settling them, especially considering these courts’ counter-majoritarian nature. Further, the wide use of majority rule for checking the constitutionality of legislation may increasingly risk their reputation. Such a concern is developing in the United States following a series of Supreme Court decisions. This book argues that majority rule is unjustified in constitutional review. This means that, in constitutional review, considering majority rule’s traits, there are no decisive reasons for using this voting rule over other voting rules. Additionally, the book argues that, when checking the constitutionality of legislation, constitutional courts should replace majority rule with supermajority rules. Thus, for declaring statutes unconstitutional, it is argued that more than 50% of the judges present plus one judge present should be needed. This book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional Law and Politics.

Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice

Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice
Title Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice PDF eBook
Author Vittoria Barsotti
Publisher Routledge
Pages 407
Release 2021-04-27
Genre Law
ISBN 1000217477

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This collection adopts a distinctive method and structure to introduce the work of Italian constitutional law scholars into the Anglophone dialogue while also bringing a number of prominent non-Italian constitutional law scholars to study and write about constitutional justice in a global context. The work presents six distinct areas of particular interest from a comparative constitutional perspective: first, the role of legal scholarship in the work of constitutional courts; second, structures and processes that contribute to more “open” or “closed” styles of constitutional adjudication; third, pros and cons of collegiality in the work of constitutional courts; fourth, forms of access by individuals to constitutional justice; fifth, methods of constitutional interpretation; and sixth, the relationship between national constitutional adjudication and the transnational context. In each of these six areas, the volume sets up a new and genuine constitutional dialogue between an Italian scholar presenting a discussion and critical assessment of the specific topic, and a non-Italian scholar who responds elaborating the issue as seen from constitutional law beyond the Italian system. The resulting six such dialogues thus provide a dynamic, in-depth, multidimensional, national and transnational/comparative examination of these areas in which the `Italian style’ of constitutional adjudication has a distinctive contribution to make to comparative constitutional law in general. Fostering a deeper knowledge of the Italian Constitutional Court within the comparative global space and advancing a creative and fruitful methodological approach, the book will be fascinating reading for academics and researchers in comparative constitutional law.