In Marbury v. Madison Chief Justice John Marshall defined the Constitution as "a superior, paramount law," one that superseded the laws passed by Congress and state legislatures. What makes it paramount? This book sets out to recover the enduring principles, purposes, and meanings that inform the founders' charter and continue to offer us political guidance more than 200 years later. In so doing it steers a middle course between "originalists" who constrict interpretation to constitutional specifics and "relativists" who adapt the Constitution to the moment by ignoring original meaning. "Original intent," Ralph Ketcham argues, is best discerned by a study of the political climate that nourished the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and, more particularly, by understanding the broader meanings, intentions, and purposes of the framers.

To recover this full context of political thinking, Ketcham delves not only into the meaning of the documents but also into the connotations of the framers' vocabulary, the reasoning behind both accepted and rejected propositions, arguments for and against, and unstated assumptions. In his analysis the fundamental or enduring principles are republicanism, liberty, public good, and federalism (as part of the broader doctrine of balance of powers).

Ketcham answers convincingly those who question the relevance to modern constitutional interpretation of the finding that the founders were both republican and liberal. He asserts that the rights-protecting character of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights derived from the founders' belief that private rights depended upon active government and public virtue. In other words, private liberties rested on the citizenry's right to self-governance.

James Madison sought to ensure a system of government that would serve as guardian "both of public Good and of private rights." In providing an interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that incorporates both republican and liberal perspectives, Ketcham should find a wide readership among politically active citizens, lawyers, judges, and those who teach and study constitutional law and political theory.

The struggle for civil rights in America was fought at the lunch counter as well as in the streets. It ultimately found victory in the halls of government-but, as Richard Cortner reveals, only through a creative use of congressional power and critical judicial decisions.

Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, and shortly after its passage blacks were refused service at the Heart of Atlanta Motel and at Ollie's Barbecue in Birmingham, Alabama, as a test of the new law by business owners who claimed the right to choose their own customers. These challenges made their way to the Supreme Court, becoming landmark cases frequently cited in law. Until now, however, they have never benefited from book-length analysis. Cortner provides an inside account of the litigation in both decisions to tell how they spelled the end to segregation in the South.

The fact that blacks could not travel in the South without assured access to food and lodging led Congress to enforce civil rights on the basis of its authority to regulate interstate commerce. The Supreme Court unanimously sustained Title II's constitutionality under the commerce clause in both test cases, joining the executive and legislative branches in defining the power of the federal government to desegregate society, even by circuitous means.

Drawing on justice department files, Supreme Court justices' papers, and records of defense attorneys, Cortner provides the background for the cases, including previous legal battles over sit-ins. He describes the roles of key players in the litigation-particularly Solicitor General Archibald Cox and members of the Warren Court. In addition, he uses presidential files, oral histories, and other primary sources to give readers a clear picture of the forces at work in the creation, implementation, and validation of the Civil Rights Act.

Cortner's thorough account illuminates the nature of constitutional litigation and the judicial process, as well as the role of the Constitution and law, in two decisions that marked the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement and changed the face of America forever.

Clearly, the structure of authority in this country rests on how Americans understand the nature and relationship of law and politics. Law consists of pronouncements from the courts, but also of what we think of these pronouncements: should abortion be a choice or is it murder? Law is formed as much through the dynamic tensions that govern how these laws are received as through their official decree. Legal forms - contracts, property, rights - similarly do not reflect pre-existing or natural categories but themselves constitute social and political life because they dictate how we conceptualize our world. Even activists who seek reform inadvertently reinforce the traditional legal remedies against which they rally, oftentimes relying on legal institutions while claiming to be free of them. John Brigham's book focuses on four particular ideological movements and their strategies, including the emphasis placed by gay men on their rights during the legal struggle over the closing of gay bathhouses in the early years of the AIDS crisis and the radical feminist use of rage and radical consciousness in anti-pornography campaigns. The effect of law in politics, Brigham convincingly reveals, is constitutive precisely when political life finds its meaning in various legal forms.

In 1945 a Labour government deployed Britain's national autonomy and parliamentary sovereignty to nationalise key industries and services such as coal, rail, gas and electricity, and to establish a publicly-owned National Health Service. This monograph argues that constitutional constraints stemming from economic and legal globalisation would now preclude such a programme. It contends that whilst no state has ever, or could ever, possess complete freedom of action, nonetheless the rise of the transnational corporation means that national autonomy is now siginificantly restricted. The book focuses in particular on the way in which these economic constraints have been nurtured, reinforced and legitimised by the creation on the part of world leaders of a globalised constitutional law of trade and competition. This has been brought into existence by the adoption of effective enforcement machinery, sometimes embedded within the nation states, sometimes formed at transnational level. With Britain enmeshed in supranational economic and legal structures from which it is difficult to extricate itself, the British polity no longer enjoys the range and freedom of policymaking once open to it. Transnational legal obligations constitute not just law but in effect a de facto supreme law entrenching a predominantly neoliberal political settlement in which the freedom of the individual is identified with the freedom of the market. The book analyses the key provisions of WTO, EU and ECHR law which provide constitutional protection for private enterprise. It dwells on the law of services liberalisation, public monopolies, state aid, public procurement and the fundamental right of property ownership, arguing that the new constitutional order compromises the traditional ideals of British democracy.

From colonial times to the information age, an exhaustive survey of one of America's most contentious constitutional rights. Freedom of Association: Rights and Liberties under the Law chronicles the evolution of a right derived from but not granted in the First Amendment-freedom of association. An opening analysis of the Supreme Court's ruling against a gay adult member of the Boy Scouts of America illustrates the range and complexity of this issue. Historical discussions of colonial America, including the British Parliament's efforts to suppress political associations, set the stage for a careful scrutiny of the political and legislative activities of the 1950s and 1960s when the Supreme Court established freedom of association as a constitutionally protected right. A concluding chapter delves into the contemporary issues of antidiscriminatory and campaign finance laws and explores the ever-present tension between liberty-freedom from the state-and equality-protection by the state. Extensive A-Z entries on individuals like Alexis de Tocqueville and Robert Putnam, organizations such as the NAACP, and concepts, terms, and events Chronology of key developments in the history of freedom of association, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and the Communist Control Act of 1954

"The good of the people, " the Roman philosopher Cicero once said, "is the greatest law." But as Contemporary Legal Issues demonstrates, things aren't so clear-cut in modern America. Do the rights of homosexuals override the moral concerns of religious Americans? Does scientific progress outweigh the welfare of laboratory animals? These are some of the critical legal and political questions explored in Contemporary Legal Issues, a series focusing on the key issues facing today's legislatures and courts. Combining a broad overview essay with concise topical entries, lists of key cases, and a guide to further research, each title provides a one-stop resource for students, readers, and scholars alike.

This book discusses affirmative action or positive discrimination, defined as measures awarding privileges to certain groups that have historically suffered discrimination or have been underrepresented in specific social sectors. The book's underlying rationale is that one cannot place at the same starting point people who have been treated differently in the past because in this way one merely perpetuates a state of difference and, in turn, social gaps are exaggerated and social cohesion is endangered. Starting out with an introduction on the meaning and typology of affirmative action policies, the book goes on to emphasise the interaction of affirmative action with traditional values of liberal state, such as equality, meritocracy, democracy, justice, liberalism and socialism. It reveals the affirmative action goals from a legal and sociological point of view, examining the remedial, cultural, societal, pedagogical and economy purposes of such action. After applying an institutional narrative of the implementation of affirmative action worldwide, the book explains the jurisprudence on the issue through syntheses and antitheses of structural and material variables, such as the institutional recognition of the policies, the domains of their implementation and their beneficiaries. The book eventually makes an analytical impact assessment following the implementation of affirmative action plans and the judicial response, especially in relation to the conventional human rights doctrine, by establishing a liaison between affirmative action and social and group rights.. The book applies a multi-disciplinary and comparative methodology in order to assess the ethical standing of affirmative action policies, the public interests involved and their effectiveness towards actual equality. In the light of the above analysis, the monograph explains the arguments considering affirmative action as a theology for substantive equality and the arguments treating this policy as anathema for liberalism. A universal discussion currently at its peak.

This book uses role theory to analyze the judicial decisions made by state supreme court judges. Grounded in the fields of anthropology, business management, psychology, and sociology, role theory holds that, for each position an individual occupies in society, he or she creates a role orientation, or a belief about the limits of proper behavior. Judicial role orientation is conceptualized as the stimuli that a judge feels can legitimately be allowed to influence his or her decision-making and, in the case of conflict among influences, what priorities to assign to different decisional criteria. This role orientation is generally seen as existing on a spectrum ranging from activist to restraintist. Using multi-faceted data collection and empirical testing, this book discusses the variation in judges' role orientations, the role that personal institutional structure and judges' backgrounds play in determining judicial orientations, and the degree to which judges' orientations affect their decision-making. The first study to provide cross-institutional research on state supreme court judges, this book expands and advances the literature on judicial role orientation. As such, this book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers studying political science, public policy, law, and the courts.

This text evolved out of a series of fiscal studies prepared by a team from Harvard University of which the author was the director. It analyses the many constraints and economic characteristics found in low-income countries that affect the type of modern tax system that can work in these countries. It specifically looks at Nepal and reengineering the tax system there in terms of policy and administration.

This book examines the constitutional principles governing the relationship between legislatures and courts at that critical crossroads of their power where legislatures may seek to intervene in the judicial process, or to interfere with judicial functions, to secure outcomes consistent with their policy objectives or interests. Cases of high political moment are usually involved, where the temptation, indeed political imperative, for legislatures to intervene can be overwhelming. Although the methods of intervention are various, ranging from the direct and egregious to the subtle and imperceptible, unbridled legislative power in this regard has been a continuing concern in all common law jurisdictions. Prominent examples include direct legislative interference in pending cases, usurpation of judicial power by legislatures, limitations on the jurisdiction of courts, strategic amendments to law applicable to cases pending appeal, and attempts directly to overturn court decisions in particular cases. Because the doctrine of the separation of powers, as an entrenched constitutional rule, is a major source of principle, the book will examine in detail the jurisprudence of the United States and Australia in particular. These jurisdictions have identical constitutional provisions entrenching that doctrine as well as the most developed jurisprudence on this point. The legal position in the United Kingdom, which does not have an entrenched separation of powers doctrine, will be examined as a counterpoint. Other relevant jurisdictions (such as Canada, Ireland and India) are also examined in the context of particular principles, particularly when their respective jurisprudence is rather more developed on discrete points. The book examines how the relevant constitutional principles strive to maintain the primacy of the law-making role of the legislature in a representative democracy and yet afford the decisional independence of the judiciary that degree of protection essential to protect it from the legislature's 'impetuous vortex', to borrow the words of James Madison from The Federalist (No 48).

The doctrine of judicial recusal enables - and may require - a judge who is lawfully appointed to hear and determine a case to stand down from that case, leaving its disposition to another colleague or colleagues. The subject is one of considerable import and moment, not only to 'insiders' in the judiciary, but also to litigants and their lawyers. Understanding the principles which guide recusal is also to understand the fundamentals of judging in the common law tradition. The subject is therefore of considerable interest both at practical and theoretical levels, for it tells us most of what we need to know about what it means "to be a judge" and what the discharge of that constitutional duty entails. Unsurprisingly therefore, the subject has attracted controversy, and some of the most savage criticisms ever directed at particular judges. The book commences with an introduction which is followed by an analysis of the essential features of the law, the legal principles (common-law origins, the law today in the USA, UK and Commonwealth) and the difficulties which currently arise in the cases and by operation of statute. The third part looks at process, including waiver, necessity, appellate review, and final appeals. Three specific problem areas (judicial misconduct in court, prior viewpoints, and unconcious bias) are then discussed. The book ends with the author's reflections on future developments and possible reforms of recusal law.

Conventional wisdom holds that robust enforcement of intellectual property (IP) right suppress competition and innovation by shielding incumbents against the entry threats posed by smaller innovators. That assumption has driven mostly successful efforts to weaken US patent protections for over a decade. This book challenges that assumption. In Innovators, Firms, and Markets, Jonathan M. Barnett confronts the reigning policy consensus by analyzing the relationship between IP rights, firm organization, and market structure. Integrating tools and concepts from IP and antitrust law, institutional economics, and political science, real-world understandings of technology markets, and empirical insights from the economic history of the US patent system, Barnett provides a novel framework for IP policy analysis. His cohesive framework explains how robust enforcement of IP rights enables entrepreneurial firms, which are rich in ideas but poor in capital, to secure outside investment and form the cooperative relationships needed to transform a breakthrough innovation into a marketable product. The history of the US patent system and firms' lobbying tendencies show that weakening patent protections removes a critical tool for entrants to challenge incumbents that enjoy difficult-to-match commercialization and financing capacities. Counterintuitively, the book demonstrates that weak IP rights are often the best entry barrier the state can provide to protect entrenched incumbents against disruptive innovators. By challenging common assumptions and offering a powerful integrated framework for understanding how innovation happens and the law's role in that process, Barnett's Innovators, Firms, and Markets provides important insights into how IP law shapes our economy.

John Marshall Harlan, grandson of the first Supreme Court Justice of the same name, served on the Court from 1955 until his retirement and death in 1971. An articulate and forceful critic of the expansive civil liberties doctrines and constitutional trends of the period, Harlan is considered one of the most scholarly jurists ever to have served on the Supreme Court. To date, however, there exists no book-length biography or analysis of his judicial and constitutional philosophy.

Tinsley Yarbrough, a biographer of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Judge Frank Johnson, and Judge J Waties Waring, is writing the first biography of Supreme Court Justice Harlan. Drawing on a thorough examination of the John Marshall Harlan Papers archive at Princeton, interviews with Harlan's family, clerks, and acquaintances, and inter-chambers memoranda and related archival material, Yarbrough will provide a fascinating portrait of Harlan's life, career and the evolution of his judicial and constitutional philosophy. He will give special attention to Harlan's approach to constitutional issues such as the relationship of the Bill of Rights to states, the nature and scope of freedom of expression, the reach of congressional power over civil rights, the right to privacy, the rights of suspects and defendants, modern trends in equal protection doctrine, and the extent to which private activities are subject to constitutional limitations. Throughout his analysis, Yarbrough will consider the possible connections between Harlan's private life and his jurisprudence.

Often cited authority on the foundations of law. Originally published: Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1874. xiii, 401 pp. Originally written in Latin in 1523, this work contains two dialogues between a doctor of divinity and a student of English law. It popularized canonist learning on the nature and object of law, the religious and moral standards of law, the foundations of the common law and issues regarding the jurisdiction of Parliament. A very important work in the development of equity, Doctor and Student appeared in numerous editions. An authority well into the eighteenth century, it influenced several legal writers, including Blackstone.
." . . surely the most remarkable book relating to English law published in the Tudor period, and quite unlike any book to have come from the pen of an English lawyer before." --Dictionary of National Biography XVII:616.
CHRISTOPHER SAINT GERMAIN c.1460-1540] was a legal writer and controversialist who wrote on a variety of topics. His noteworthy works include A Treatise Concernynge the Dilusion Betwene the Spiritualtie and Temporaltie (1532) and Salem and Bizance (1533). Also a notable bibliophile, his library exceeded that of any other lawyer of his time.

The Ninth Amendment has had a remarkably robust history, playing a role in almost every significant constitutional debate in American history, including the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts, the struggle over slavery, and the constitutionality of the New Deal. Until very recently, however, this history has been almost completely lost due to a combination of historical accident, mistaken assumptions, and misplaced historical documents. Drawing upon a wide range of primary sources, most never before included in any book on the Ninth Amendment or the Bill of Rights, Kurt T. Lash recovers the lost history of the Ninth Amendment and explores how its original understanding can be applied to protect the people's retained rights today.
The most important aspect of The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment is its presentation of newly uncovered historical evidence which calls into question the currently presumed meaning and application of the Ninth Amendment. The evidence not only challenges the traditional view regarding the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment, it also falsifies the common assumption that the Amendment lay dormant prior to the Supreme Court's "discovery" of the clause in Griswold v. Connecticut.
As a history of the Ninth Amendment, the book recapitulates the history of federalism in America and the idea that local self-government is a right retained by the people. This issue has particular contemporary salience as the Supreme Court considers whether states have the right to authorize medicinal use of marijuana, refuse to assist the enforcement of national laws like the Patriot Act, or regulate physician-assisted suicide. The meaning of the Ninth Amendment has played a key role in past Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices and the current divide on the Court regarding the meaning of the Ninth Amendment makes it likely the subject will come up again during the next set of hearings.

This edited collection explores the topic of constitutionalism across borders in the struggle against terrorism, analyzing how constitutional rules and principles relevant in the field of counter-terrorism move across borders. Various chapters underline how constitution-like norms consolidate at the level of international and supranational organizations as a limit to the exercise of public power in the field of counter-terrorism policy, especially counter-terrorism financing. Other chapters examine the extraterritorial application of constitutional rights and the migration of constitutional norms - or anti-constitutional practices - from one state to another. Still others consider how transnational cooperation between states in areas such as intelligence gathering and data sharing may call for updating domestic constitutional law rules or for new international law compacts entrenching rights across borders. What emerges is a picture of the complex interplay of constitutional law, international law, criminal law and the law of war, creating webs of norms and regulations that apply in the struggle against terrorism conducted across increasingly porous borders. The book will be of particular interest to academics and graduate or post-graduate students working in the fields of constitutional law, international law, human rights, comparative law and national security law. It may also be of interest to practitioners concerned with national security, counterterrorism, and related questions of individual rights. Contributors: O. Bassok, D. Cole, K. Cooper, J. Daskal, E. de Wet, B. Dickson, A. Ejima, S. Ellmann, F. Fabbrini, L. Garlicki, J. Hafetz, V.J. Jackson, C.C. Murphy, M. Scheinin, K.L. Scheppele, A. Su, C. Walker

The Bush Administration has notoriously argued that detainees at Guantanamo do not enjoy constitutional rights because they are held outside American borders. But where do rules about territorial legal limits such as this one come from? Why does geography make a difference for what legal rules apply? Most people intuitively understand that location affects constitutional rights, but the legal and political basis for territorial jurisdiction is poorly understood. In this novel and accessible treatment of territoriality in American law and foreign policy, Kal Raustiala begins by tracing the history of the subject from its origins in post-revolutionary America to the Indian wars and overseas imperialism of the 19th century. He then takes the reader through the Cold War and the globalization era before closing with a powerful explanation of America's attempt to increase its extraterritorial power in the post-9/11 world. As American power has grown, our understanding of extraterritorial legal rights has expanded too, and Raustiala illuminates why America's assumptions about sovereignty and territory have changed. Throughout, he focuses on how the legal limits of territorial sovereignty have diminished to accommodate the expanding American empire, and addresses how such limits ought to look in the wake of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror. A timely and engaging narrative, Does the Constitution Follow the Flag? will change how we think about American territory, American law, and-ultimately-the changing nature of American power.

Although there is no doubt that the constitution has been significantly reformed since the election of New Labour in 1997 the degree to which these reforms have altered the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom remains highly contested. A major problem within this debate is that it has become polarized around a binary distinction between power-sharing and power-hoarding models of democracy when the contemporary situation is actually far more complex. This book draws upon theories and methods from comparative political analysis in order to argue and then demonstrate three central and inter-related arguments.
Firstly, that the distinctive element of New Labour's approach to constitutional engineering is not that it has shifted the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom from one model to another but has instead sought to apply different models at the periphery and core: bi-constitutionality.
Secondly, that contemporary evidence of both increasing levels of public disengagement from conventional politics and falling levels of public trust in politicians, political institutions and political processes originate from the 'expectations gap'. This 'gap' is created by the process of political competition artificially increases public expectations; only for these expectations to be dashed as the elected party either seeks to renege upon certain pre-election commitments or fails to achieve them.
Finally, democracy in the United Kingdom is currently drifting. The old rules do not appear to suit the new game, and yet the government continues to insist that the old rules still apply. The critical challenge for any future government, of any political complexion, will be to articulate a new form of constitutional morality with the capacity to clarify exactly what its reforms in the sphere of constitutional reform and democratic renewal are seeking to achieve.
The analysis offered in this book focuses on the evolution of democracy in the United Kingdom since the election of New Labour in 1997. However in order to achieve both depth and breadth this analysis is then located within the contours of much broader longitudinal and comparative analyses. This involves examining the trajectory of democracy in the United Kingdom from 1945 onwards, and then comparing this long-term view within a much broader comparative perspective to examine the degree to which recent developments in the United Kingdom fit within global democratic trends.

Prisoners' rights is an area of constitutional law that is often overlooked. Combining an historical and strategic analysis, this study describes the doctrinal development of the constitutional rights of prisoners from the pre-Warren Court period through the current Rehnquist Court. Like many provisions in the Bill of Rights, the meaning of the Eighth Amendment's language on cruel and unusual punishment and the scope of prisoners' rights have been influenced by prevailing public opinion, interest group advocacy, and--most importantly--the ideological values of the nine individuals who sit on the Supreme Court. These variables are incorporated in a strategic analysis of judicial decision making in an attempt to understand the constitutional development of rights in this area.

Fliter examines dozens of cases spanning 50 years and provides a systematic analysis of strategic interaction on the Supreme Court. His results support the notion that justices do not simply vote their policy preferences; some seek to influence their colleagues and the broader legal community. In many cases there was evidence of strategic interaction in the form of voting fluidity, substantive opinion revisions, dissents from denial of certiorari, and lobbying to form a majority coalition. The analysis reaches beyond death penalty cases and includes noncapital cases arising under the Eighth Amendment, habeas corpus petitions, conditions of confinement cases, and due process claims.

Since the first edition of this popular text was published in 1984, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed the role of the courts in Canadian politics. Newly revised and updated, Law, Politics, and the Judicial Process in Canada, 4th Edition provides an introduction to the issues raised by the changing political role of Canadian judges. It includes over 40 new readings, including two all-new chapters on the Harper Conservatives and Aboriginal Law. Addressing current controversies, including the Canadian Judicial Council's investigations into Justice Robin Camp and Lori Douglas and the Trudeau Government's re-introduction of the Court Challenges Program, this book strives for competing perspectives, with many readings juxtaposed to foster debate. Taking a critical approach to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the growth of judicial power, editors F.L. Morton and Dave Snow provide an even-handed examination of current and ongoing issues. Law, Politics, and the Judicial Process in Canada, 4th Edition is the leading source for students interested in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the growth of judicial power in Canada.