The founding fathers of the United States were the authors of the United States Constitution which has served this country well for over two centuries. This book is about judicial activism. There are two important provisions of the Constitution which are involved in this discussion. First, the Constitution provides for the separation of powers in the Federal Government. Second, the Constitution guarantees to every state in the Union a Republican form of government, which gives the people of the States the power to govern themselves. Judicial activism occurs when the United States Supreme Court exercises legislative power. President Washington cautioned those entrusted with the administration of the government to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. When the Supreme Court legislates, it tends to impair the capacity of the State governments to govern themselves. The book contains several historical sketches which describe the development of the rule of law, the development of the common law in England, the making of the United States Constitution, plus several sketches that describe some aspects of the legal systems in the United States. The rule of law was a very important concept that was acquired by the original States from their colonial experience. When the departments of the United States government do not observe and respect the separation of powers, they do not follow the rule of law. Also, included is a Chapter Entitled "The Judicial Assault on Religious Liberty".

In Reflections on Judging, Richard Posner distills the experience of his thirty-one years as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Surveying how the judiciary has changed since his 1981 appointment, he engages the issues at stake today, suggesting how lawyers should argue cases and judges decide them, how trials can be improved, and, most urgently, how to cope with the dizzying pace of technological advance that makes litigation ever more challenging to judges and lawyers. For Posner, legal formalism presents one of the main obstacles to tackling these problems. Formalist judges--most notably Justice Antonin Scalia--needlessly complicate the legal process by advocating "canons of constructions" (principles for interpreting statutes and the Constitution) that are confusing and self-contradictory. Posner calls instead for a renewed commitment to legal realism, whereby a good judge gathers facts, carefully considers context, and comes to a sensible conclusion that avoids inflicting collateral damage on other areas of the law. This, Posner believes, was the approach of the jurists he most admires and seeks to emulate: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Learned Hand, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly, and it is an approach that can best resolve our twenty-first-century legal disputes.

Constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt uses plain language and compelling examples to explain how the Constitution can be both a constant and an organic document, and takes a balanced look at controversial decisions through a compelling new lens of constitutional interpretation.

Judicial control of public power ensures a guarantee of the rule of law. This book addresses the scope and limits of judicial control at the national level, i.e. the control of public authorities, and at the supranational level, i.e. the control of States. It explores the risk of judicial review leading to judicial activism that can threaten the principle of the separation of powers or the legitimate exercise of state powers. It analyzes how national and supranational legal systems have embodied certain mechanisms, such as the principles of reasonableness, proportionality, deference and margin of appreciation, as well as the horizontal effects of human rights that help to determine how far a judge can go. Taking a theoretical and comparative view, the book first examines the conceptual bases of the various control systems and then studies the models, structural elements, and functions of the control instruments in selected countries and regions. It uses country and regional reports as the basis for the comparison of the convergences and divergences of the implementation of control in certain countries of Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The book’s theoretical reflections and comparative investigations provide answers to important questions, such as whether or not there are nascent universal principles concerning the control of public power, how strong the impact of particular legal traditions is, and to what extent international law concepts have had harmonizing and strengthening effects on internal public-power control.

In this first comprehensive overview of the intersection of immigration law and the First Amendment, a lawyer and historian traces ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States from the Alien Friends Act of 1798 to the evolving policies of the Trump administration. Beginning with the Alien Friends Act of 1798, the United States passed laws in the name of national security to bar or expel foreigners based on their beliefs and associations—although these laws sometimes conflict with First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and association or contradict America’s self-image as a nation of immigrants. The government has continually used ideological exclusions and deportations of noncitizens to suppress dissent and radicalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the War on Anarchy to the Cold War to the War on Terror. In Threat of Dissent—the first social, political, and legal history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States—Julia Rose Kraut delves into the intricacies of major court decisions and legislation without losing sight of the people involved. We follow the cases of immigrants and foreign-born visitors, including activists, scholars, and artists such as Emma Goldman, Ernest Mandel, Carlos Fuentes, Charlie Chaplin, and John Lennon. Kraut also highlights lawyers, including Clarence Darrow and Carol Weiss King, as well as organizations, like the ACLU and PEN America, who challenged the constitutionality of ideological exclusions and deportations under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, however, frequently interpreted restrictions under immigration law and upheld the government’s authority. By reminding us of the legal vulnerability foreigners face on the basis of their beliefs, expressions, and associations, Kraut calls our attention to the ways that ideological exclusion and deportation reflect fears of subversion and serve as tools of political repression in the United States.

Speaking Out! is a compilation of constitutional law professor Geoffrey R. Stone's op-eds and blog posts addressing a range of controversial issues, including government-authorized torture, electronic surveillance, military tribunals, religion and the law, same-sex marriage, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Supreme Court nominations and confirmations, and the role and responsibilities of the Supreme Court in our democratic society.

Using a Colombian case study, this book assesses the potential for court rulings to enact real-life social change.