The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mishler ◽  
Reginald S. Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Membership Change ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
The Impact

Although normative questions about the role of the Supreme Court as a countermajoritarian institution have long excited controversy in democratic theory, empirical questions about how far the Court acts contrary to majoritarian opinion have received less attention. Time series analyses for the period 1956–89 indicate the existence of a reciprocal and positive relationship between long-term trends in aggregate public opinion and the Court's collective decisions. The Court's ideological composition changes in response to previous shifts in the partisan and ideological orientation of the president and Congress. The Court also responds to public opinion at the margins even in the absence of membership change. Since 1981, the relationship has vanished or turned negative in direction. The Court's ideological balance has been upset by an unbroken string of conservative-to-moderate appointments, thereby undermining the dynamics that promote judicial responsiveness and raising questions about the majoritarianism of the contemporary and future Court.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Supreme Court of Canada on Intergovernmental Relations

Federalism-E ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goldlist
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication ◽  
The Impact

The role of the Supreme Court in the practice of Canadian federalism, specifically the extent of its power and the effects of that power, is a hotly contested issue in Canadian political science. While some scholars have argued that the Court has taken on too political of a role that must be restricted, this paper develops the Court as a constitutional ‘umpire,’ whose rulings serve the important, but limited, functions of allocating political resources to incentivize negotiation, and establishing jurisdictional boundaries for said negotiations, leaving specific policy decisions to political, as opposed to legal, actors. Concerning the net outcome of the Court’s jurisprudence on the distribution of legislative powers, this paper illustrates the Court’s overall balancing approach, with grants of power to one level of government met with increases in authority to the other, in all major policy areas. Thus, ultimately shown to embrace both a limited and impartial approach to constitutional adjudication, the Court has done much to enhance its democratic legitimacy and constitutional utility.

12. Concepts and Contexts

Land Law ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben McFarlane ◽  
Nicholas Hopkins ◽  
Sarah Nield
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Court Ruling ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
Legislative Reform ◽  
Private Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores some of the wider issues raised by the rules applying to private rights to use land, along with the nature of the challenges faced by judges and Parliament when deciding how best to develop those rules. It begins by discussing the importance of concepts and contexts in land law, as well as the tension between concepts and contexts and the effect of different judicial approaches to land law. It then considers the relative merits of judicial and legislative reform of land law and goes on to examine the impact of statutory reform, particularly of registration statutes, in land law. It also assesses the impact of human rights and regulation on land law, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Scott v Southern Pacific Mortgages Ltd (2015), before concluding with an analysis of the role of non-doctrinal approaches in evaluating land law.

“Beings of an Inferior Order”

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Peter Irons
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
State Court ◽  
Dred Scott ◽  
Black Person ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses the role of the legal system, including the Supreme Court, in upholding the constitutionality of slavery. It first examines the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania in 1842, in which the Supreme Court reversed the conviction in state court of Edward Prigg, a professional slave-catcher, for kidnapping Margaret Morgan, who escaped from slavery in Maryland to the free state of Pennsylvania. Ruling that state officials could not hinder enforcement of the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, the Court also held that state officials could decline to aid slave-catchers, leading to mass demonstrations in Boston over the “rendition” of escaped slaves George Latimer and Anthony Burns. The chapter includes a recounting of the infamous Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney held that no Black person was a citizen and that Blacks were “an inferior order of beings” who had “no rights that the white man was bound to respect.” The chapter concludes with a discussion of the impact of the Dred Scott ruling on the presidential campaign of 1860, in which Abraham Lincoln denounced the decision and provoked the slave states to secede from the Union and launch the Civil War.

12. Concepts and Contexts

Land Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 406-424
Author(s):  
Ben McFarlane ◽  
Nicholas Hopkins ◽  
Sarah Nield
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Court Ruling ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
Legislative Reform ◽  
Private Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores some of the wider issues raised by the rules applying to private rights to use land, along with the nature of the challenges faced by judges and Parliament when deciding how best to develop those rules. It begins by discussing the importance of concepts and contexts in land law, as well as the tension between concepts and contexts and the effect of different judicial approaches to land law. It then considers the relative merits of judicial and legislative reform of land law and goes on to examine the impact of statutory reform, particularly of registration statutes, in land law. It also assesses the impact of human rights and regulation on land law, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Scott v Southern Pacific Mortgages Ltd (2015), before concluding with an analysis of the role of non-doctrinal approaches in evaluating land law.

scholarly journals Assessing Public Support for Terrorism Over Time

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Schumann ◽  
Bettina Rottweiler ◽  
Paul Gill
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Over Time

Public support for terrorism reflects people’s sympathy for terrorist groups or tactics; it is influenced by and, in turn, shapes terrorists’ campaigns as well as counter-terrorism measures. To date, long term trends of public opinion about terrorism have been assessed in case studies and through descriptive statistics. Systematic analyses that specify whether and how public support for terrorism has changed over time are not available. We addressed this gap in the literature and conducted time-series analyses of eight waves of data (2004 2011) from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey. Including responses from 15 Muslim majority countries (N =43255), we showed that the percentage of people who believed that suicide terrorism was justified decreased between 2005 and 2007 after which support remained at a lower level (one structural breakpoint). Results also highlighted that depending on how public opinion was operationalised, the same data could inform an opposing narrative about support for terrorism. Notably when analyses were replicated with a mean composite score of the answer options ‘often', 'sometimes‘ and ‘rarely justified’ the percentage of people who thought that terrorism was ‘ever justified’ was reduced in 2005 before increasing again in 2008 (two structural breakpoints). Pre-registration of studies is therefore crucial to avoid selective analyses.

Chevron Deference after Mayo

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Edward J. Schnee ◽  
W. Eugene Seago
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT The authors provide the background to the issues decided by the Supreme Court in Mayo regarding the deference the courts should grant to Treasury regulations. The implications are broad, since the deference issue determines whether the administration or the judiciary's opinion should prevail. The paper then discusses the impact of Mayo on the Chevron deference, and how the two-step approach should be applied to regulations and other Treasury pronouncements. Finally, the paper will address the role of legislative history and the Chenery and hard look doctrines within Chevron's two steps.

scholarly journals Decisión judicial y participación ciudadana: los impactos de las audiencias públicas en las sentencias de la Corte Suprema argentina = Judicial decision making and public participation: the impact of public hearings in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Argentina

2018 ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Miguel Á. Benedetti ◽  
M. Jimena Sáenz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Public Hearings ◽  
The Impact

Resumen: En las últimas décadas, las audiencias públicas realizadas en foros judiciales han sido señaladas como una de las innovaciones más importantes en las prácticas de los tribunales de altas instancias latinoamericanos. Estas audiencias prometen una renovación en los modos de pensar las tensas relaciones entre el poder judicial –especialmente su facultad de revisión de constitucionalidad– y la democracia a partir de la apertura del espacio judicial al diálogo y la participación de la ciudadanía, de las modalidades de intervención judicial para la protección de derechos, y de los aspectos simbólicos y políticos de herramientas que usualmente se reconocen como meramente procesales. A la luz de esos objetivos de renovación dialógica, pragmática y simbólica de las prácticas judiciales que abrieron las audiencias, este trabajo testea su grado de concreción a través de un estudio de los efectos de las audiencias públicas realizadas por la Corte Suprema de Justicia argentina en sus decisiones desde finales de 2004 hasta el 2017 inclusive.Palabras clave: Corte Suprema, audiencias públicas, participación ciudadana, deliberación, decisión judicialAbstract: The implementation of public hearings in judicial fora in the last decades has been considered from different perspectives one of the most important innovations in the practices of Latin American Courts. They promise a renovation in the ways of accommodating the tension between the role of Courts (especially their function of judicial review) and democracy; in the models of judicial decision making, and they point to the symbolic dimension of procedural rules and practices. This paper presents a study that tests the accomplishment of these promises tracing the impact of public hearings in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Argentina in the period between 2004 and 2017.Keywords: Supreme Court, public hearings, public participation, deliberation, judicial decision making.  

scholarly journals NGOs environmental legal mobilization and their access to the Spanish Supreme Court

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9(3)) ◽  
pp. 308-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luz Muñoz ◽  
David Moya
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
European Regulation ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
The Supreme Court

Environmental NGOs in Spain are well known policy actors. Since the nineties some of them have been invited to participate in governmental committees and/or to provide expertise to Parliamentary committees. They have also an important role in mobilizing public opinion to defend and protect the environment. We know less though about how do they intervene in the judicial arena. In the framework of a growing role of the Courts in the field of environmental governance, the goal of this paper is to analyze to what extent Spanish NGOs resorted to the judicial arena, specifically the Supreme Court, to enforce international and European higher standards of environmental protection and advocated against wrong or inadequate praxis in the implementation of environmental regulations. Several non-judicial factors seem to have strengthened that trend in Spain: increasing environmental national and European regulation as well as the NGOs organizational capacity to make judicial claims in line with their policy preferences. Desde la década de los noventa, las ONG medioambientales de España participan en comités gubernamentales y/o como expertas en los comités parlamentarios; además de tener un papel importante en la movilización de la opinión pública. En cambio, sabemos menos sobre hasta qué punto recurren a la arena judicial. En el contexto de un creciente de papel de los tribunales en el campo de la gobernanza ambiental, el objetivo de este documento es analizar en qué medida las ONG españolas inician litigios, específicamente en el Tribunal Supremo, para exigir el cumplimiento de los estándares internacionales y europeos de protección del medio ambiente o en contra de malas praxis. Varios factores no judiciales parecen haber reforzado esa tendencia en España: el aumento de la regulación ambiental nacional y europea, así como la capacidad organizativa de las ONG para iniciar litigios en línea con su posición sobre una política determinada.

The Right to Housing: Challenges Associated with the ‘Waiting List System’ Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality V Various Occupiers, Eden Park Extension 5 2014 3 SA 23 (SCA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-121
Author(s):  
Shamier Ebrahim
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Waiting Lists ◽  
The State ◽  
Waiting List ◽  
Allocation Process ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Court Of Appeal

The right to adequate housing is a constitutional imperative which is contained in section 26 of the Constitution. The state is tasked with the progressive realisation of this right. The allocation of housing has been plagued with challenges which impact negatively on the allocation process. This note analyses Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality v Various Occupiers, Eden Park Extension 51 which dealt with a situation where one of the main reasons provided by the Supreme Court of Appeal for refusing the eviction order was because the appellants subjected the unlawful occupiers to defective waiting lists and failed to engage with the community regarding the compilation of the lists and the criteria used to identify beneficiaries. This case brings to the fore the importance of a coherent (reasonable) waiting list in eviction proceedings. This note further analyses the impact of the waiting list system in eviction proceedings and makes recommendations regarding what would constitute a coherent (reasonable) waiting list for the purpose of section 26(2) of the Constitution.

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