The Empirical Gap in Jurisprudence

The Empirical Gap in Jurisprudence
Author: Daved Muttart
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0802091598

Daved Muttart has made a systematic study encompassing every judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada between 1950 and 2003. Muttart uses the results of this systematic examination to test the validity of extant jurisprudential theories.

Empirical Gap in Jurisprudence

Empirical Gap in Jurisprudence
Author: Daved Muttart
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2007-02-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1487591802

In jurisprudential writing, single decisions are often held up as representative without any evidence to support their representative claims. In order to address this problem, Daved Muttart has made a systematic study encompassing every judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada between 1950 and 2003. Examining almost 5000 cases, Muttart analyses these Supreme Court decisions employing several important criteria including whether the decisions overruled prior precedent, the extent to which they were decided on fact, law, or policy, and the legal and extra-legal modes of reasoning utilized by the Court. Muttart uses the results of this systematic examination to test the validity of extant jurisprudential theories. Ultimately, he concludes that the Court's method of operation is evolving as it moves into a new century. While the court's reasoning is becoming less foundational, it remains a predominantly legal, as opposed to political, institution. Filling an important niche in the study of jurisprudence, The Empirical Gap in Jurisprudence demonstrates that systematic studies based on large samples of cases will yield many insights that were obfuscated by prior efforts that relied on small and self-selected samples.

Empirical Legal Research

Empirical Legal Research
Author: Frans L. Leeuw
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2016-03-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1782549412

Empirical Legal Research describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies and other legal arrangements at play in society. It is invaluable as a guide to legal scholars, practitioners and students on how to do empirical legal research, covering history, methods, evidence, growth of knowledge and links with normativity. This multidisciplinary approach combines insights and approaches from different social sciences, evaluation studies, Big Data analytics and empirically informed ethics. The authors present an overview of the roots of this blossoming interdisciplinary domain, going back to legal realism, the fields of law, economics and the social sciences, and also to civilology and evaluation studies. The book addresses not only data analysis and statistics, but also how to formulate adequate research problems, to use (and test) different types of theories (explanatory and intervention theories) and to apply new forms of literature research to the field of law such as the systematic, rapid and realist reviews and synthesis studies. The choice and architecture of research designs, the collection of data, including Big Data, and how to analyze and visualize data are also covered. The book discusses the tensions between the normative character of law and legal issues and the descriptive and causal character of empirical legal research, and suggests ways to help handle this seeming disconnect. This comprehensive guide is vital reading for law practitioners as well as for students and researchers dealing with regulation, legislation and other legal arrangements.

Constitutional Crossroads

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

Four decades have passed since the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982. Now it is time to assess its legacy. Constitutional Crossroads 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 constitutional reform but also analyze the ensuing scholarship that has shaped our understanding of the Constitution. Contributors bypass historical description to offer reflective assessments of issues such as sovereignty, identity and pluralism, the scope and limits of rights, competing constitutional visions, the relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples, and the nature and methods of constitutional change.

Intolerant Religion in a Tolerant-Liberal Democracy

Intolerant Religion in a Tolerant-Liberal Democracy
Author: Yossi Nehushtan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-01-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1782259511

This book aims to examine and critically analyse the role that religion has and should have in the public and legal sphere. The main purpose of the book is to explain why religion, on the whole, should not be tolerated in a tolerant-liberal democracy and to describe exactly how it should not be tolerated – mainly by addressing legal issues. The main arguments of the book are, first, that as a general rule illiberal intolerance should not be tolerated; secondly, that there are meaningful, unique links between religion and intolerance, and between holding religious beliefs and holding intolerant views (and ultimately acting upon these views); and thirdly, that the religiosity of a legal claim is normally a reason, although not necessarily a prevailing one, not to accept that claim.

Beyond Common Knowledge

Beyond Common Knowledge
Author: Erik Gilbert Jensen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2003
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780804748032

An intensive global search is on for the "rule of law," the holy grail of good governance, which has led to a dramatic increase in judicial reform activities in developing countries. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the widening gap between theory and practice, or to the ongoing disconnect between stated project goals and actual funded activities. Beyond Common Knowledge examines the standard methods of legal and judicial reform. Taking stock of international experience in legal and judicial reform in Latin America, Europe, India, and China, this volume answers key questions in the judicial reform debate: What are the common assumptions about the role of the courts in improving economic growth and democratic politics? Do we expect too much from the formal legal system? Is investing in judicial reform projects a good strategy for getting at the problems of governance that beset many developing countries? If not, what are we missing?

Routledge Handbook of Socio-Legal Theory and Methods

Routledge Handbook of Socio-Legal Theory and Methods
Author: Naomi Creutzfeldt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 566
Release: 2019-08-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0429489749

Drawing on a range of approaches from the social sciences and humanities, this handbook explores theoretical and empirical perspectives that address the articulation of law in society, and the social character of the rule of law. The vast field of socio-legal studies provides multiple lenses through which law can be considered. Rather than seeking to define the field of socio-legal studies, this book takes up the experiences of researchers within the field. First-hand accounts of socio-legal research projects allow the reader to engage with diverse theoretical and methodological approaches within this fluid interdisciplinary area. The book provides a rich resource for those interested in deepening their understanding of the variety of theories and methods available when law is studied in its broadest social context, as well as setting those within the history of the socio-legal movement. The chapters consider multiple disciplinary lenses – including feminism, anthropology and sociology – as well as a variety of methodologies, including: narrative, visual and spatial, psychological, economic and epidemiological approaches. Moreover, these are applied in a range of substantive contexts such as online hate speech, environmental law, biotechnology, research in post-conflict situations, race and LGBT+ lawyers. The handbook brings together younger contributors and some of the best-known names in the socio-legal field. It offers a fresh perspective on the past, present and future of sociolegal studies that will appeal to students and scholars with relevant interests in a range of subjects, including law, sociology and politics. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Toward an Informal Account of Legal Interpretation

Toward an Informal Account of Legal Interpretation
Author: Allan C. Hutchinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2016-10-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1316720985

Toward an Informal Account of Legal Interpretation offers a viable account of law, judicial decision-making, and legal interpretation that is as fresh as it is familiar. The author expertly challenges the dominant mode of formalist theorizing and proposes an explanatory account of legal interpretation that can profitably be understood as an 'informal' intervention. Such an informal approach has no truck with either the claims of the formalists (i.e., that law is something separate from ideology) or those of the anti-formalists (i.e., that law is nothing other than ideological posturing). Hutchinson insists that, when understood properly, legal interpretation is an applied exercise in law-and-ideology; it is both constrained and unconstrained in equal measure. In developing this informalist account through a sustained application of the 'no vehicles in the park' rule, this book is wide-ranging in theoretical scope and substance, but also accessible and practical in style.

Governing from the Bench

Governing from the Bench
Author: Emmett Macfarlane
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 077482350X

In Governing from the Bench, Emmett Macfarlane draws on interviews with current and former justices, law clerks, and other staff members of the court to shed light on the institution’s internal environment and decision-making processes. He explores the complex role of the Supreme Court as an institution; exposes the rules, conventions, and norms that shape and constrain its justices’ behavior; and situates the court in its broader governmental and societal context, as it relates to the elected branches of government, the media, and the public.