Supreme Courts Under Pressure

Supreme Courts Under Pressure
Author: Pablo Bravo-Hurtado
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-03-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 303063731X

This book discusses civil litigation at the supreme courts of nine jurisdictions – Argentina, Austria, Croatia, England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States – and focuses on the available instruments used to keep the caseload of these courts within acceptable limits. Such instruments are necessary in order to allow supreme courts to fulfil their main duties, that is, the administration of justice in individual cases (private function) and providing for the uniformity and development of the law within their respective jurisdictions (public function). If the number of cases at the supreme court level is too high, the result is undue delays, which are mainly problematic with regard to the private function. It may also put the quality of the court’s judgments under pressure, which can affect its public and private function alike. Thus, measures aimed at avoiding excessive caseloads need to take both functions into account. Increasing the capacity of the court to handle larger numbers of cases may result in the court being unable to adequately fulfil its public function, since large numbers of court decisions make it difficult to guarantee the uniformity of the law and its development. Therefore, a balanced approach is needed to safeguard capacity and quality. As shown by the contributions gathered here, the nature of reform in this area is not the same everywhere. There are a variety of reasons for this heterogeneity, ranging from different understandings of the caseload problem itself, local conceptions regarding the purpose of the Supreme Court, and strong entitlements concerning the right to appeal to budgetary restrictions and extremely rigid legislation. The book also shows that the implementation of similar solutions to case overload, such as access filters, may have different effects in different jurisdictions. The conclusion might well be that the problem of overburdened courts is multifactorial and context-dependent, and that easy, one-size-fits-all solutions are hard to find and perhaps even harder to implement.

William Hastie

William Hastie
Author: Gilbert Ware
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1984
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Press Freedoms Under Pressure

Press Freedoms Under Pressure
Author: Twentieth Century Fund. Task Force on the Government and the Press
Publisher: Twentieth Century Foundation
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1972
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

The Constitution Under Pressure

The Constitution Under Pressure
Author: Marcia L. Whicker
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 246
Release: 1987-08-26
Genre: Law
ISBN:

Here is a comprehensive account of the U.S. Constitution--including its evolution and its impact on shaping American government and political representation. In eight fact-filled chapters, the authors carefully explore the Constitution's role. Those involved in the study of American More ... government, constitutional law, judicial behavior, legislative behavior, or politics will find this critical examination systematic, thorough, and thought-provoking.

On the Supreme Court

On the Supreme Court
Author: Louis Fisher
Publisher:
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2013-09-30
Genre: Civil rights
ISBN: 9781612054179

On the Supreme Court places the Supreme Court in a rich historical and political context, demonstrating how its interpretations of statutes and the Constitution are necessarily shared with the elected branches, the 50 states, and the general public. It explains why the Court exercises judicial review, not judicial supremacy. It demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, the Court does not supply the final or exclusive word on the Constitution. As with other branches, it is capable of making errorssometimes quite major ones. A number of clear and interesting examples are marshaled to show how the Court at times recognizes its errors and reverses itself, or reverses itself under pressure from the elected branches, as with child labor legislation. Moreover, the book reveals that the Court has rarely been a reliable guardian of individual freedoms and minority rights. Often, Congress has been the better protector, with specific examples analyzed. In an era of tectonic changes, On the Supreme Court offers a fresh perspective on this mainstay institution from a scholar with unique insights as a Constitutional specialist as well as a Congressional researcher.

The Specter of Dictatorship

The Specter of Dictatorship
Author: David M. Driesen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1503628620

Reveals how the U.S. Supreme Court's presidentialism threatens our democracy and what to do about it. Donald Trump's presidency made many Americans wonder whether our system of checks and balances would prove robust enough to withstand an onslaught from a despotic chief executive. In The Specter of Dictatorship, David Driesen analyzes the chief executive's role in the democratic decline of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey and argues that an insufficiently constrained presidency is one of the most important systemic threats to democracy. Driesen urges the U.S. to learn from the mistakes of these failing democracies. Their experiences suggest, Driesen shows, that the Court must eschew its reliance on and expansion of the "unitary executive theory" recently endorsed by the Court and apply a less deferential approach to presidential authority, invoked to protect national security and combat emergencies, than it has in recent years. Ultimately, Driesen argues that concern about loss of democracy should play a major role in the Court's jurisprudence, because loss of democracy can prove irreversible. As autocracy spreads throughout the world, maintaining our democracy has become an urgent matter.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct

Model Rules of Professional Conduct
Author: American Bar Association. House of Delegates
Publisher: American Bar Association
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2007
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781590318737

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court

Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court
Author: Richard H. Fallon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2018-02-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674975812

Legitimacy and judicial authority -- Constitutional meaning : original public meaning -- Constitutional meaning : varieties of history that matter -- Law in the Supreme Court : jurisprudential foundations -- Constitutional constraints -- Constitutional theory and its relation to constitutional practice -- Sociological, legal, and moral legitimacy : today and tomorrow

How Judges Think

How Judges Think
Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2010-05-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674033833

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Richard A. Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases. When conventional legal materials enable judges to ascertain the true facts of a case and apply clear pre-existing legal rules to them, Posner argues, they do so straightforwardly; that is the domain of legalist reasoning. However, in non-routine cases, the conventional materials run out and judges are on their own, navigating uncharted seas with equipment consisting of experience, emotions, and often unconscious beliefs. In doing so, they take on a legislative role, though one that is confined by internal and external constraints, such as professional ethics, opinions of respected colleagues, and limitations imposed by other branches of government on freewheeling judicial discretion. Occasional legislators, judges are motivated by political considerations in a broad and sometimes a narrow sense of that term. In that open area, most American judges are legal pragmatists. Legal pragmatism is forward-looking and policy-based. It focuses on the consequences of a decision in both the short and the long term, rather than on its antecedent logic. Legal pragmatism so understood is really just a form of ordinary practical reasoning, rather than some special kind of legal reasoning. Supreme Court justices are uniquely free from the constraints on ordinary judges and uniquely tempted to engage in legislative forms of adjudication. More than any other court, the Supreme Court is best understood as a political court.