scholarly journals Judges as Legislators: Not Whether But How

1969 ◽  
pp. 249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Gibson

Although judicial legislation has always been an important feature of the legal system, it is not often acknowledged publicly. This has meant that the proper limits of the process, and the means by which it can be carried out most effectively, have not received due attention from legal writers. This article addresses those questions. It examines the reasons judges make laws, the reasons for their reluctance to admit publicly that they do so, the formal and functional constraints that should govern their law-making, and some procedures by which the process may be assisted and improved.

Author(s):  
Lisa Waddington

This chapter examines the role of the judiciary with regard to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It considers the relationship which the judiciary have or appear to perceive themselves as having with the CRPD and explores some of the factors seemingly prompting courts to refer to it. The first section reflects on: whether judges are able to choose to refer to the Convention or have a legal duty to do so; the significance of the fact that the CRPD is international law; and whether judges appear to see themselves merely as domestic actors, or as agents or trustees of the CRPD. The second section explores whether judges are referring to the CRPD in response to arguments raised before the court or doing so of their own volition. Also considered are the relevance of amicus curiae interventions; reasons for referral related to the domestic legal system; and the role of particularly engaged individuals.


Author(s):  
Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott

Abstract The conventional understanding of due diligence in international law appears to be that it is a concept that forms part of primary rules. During the preparatory stages in creating the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA), the International Law Commission (ILC) focused on due diligence as though it could have formed part of secondary rules. Despite this process, no due diligence provision forms part of the ARSIWA. Yet a number of the final provisions are based on primary rules. This is because the ILC relied on the method of extrapolation in attempts to create secondary rules. Extrapolation is a method of international law-making by which the output of an analytical process is reproduced in a different form following an examination of its content that exists in other forms. In using this method, the ILC attempted to create secondary rules by extrapolating from primary rules. Yet it did not do so with respect to due diligence. However, due diligence can be formulated and applied differently by using this same method. This article analyses the steps of this process to construct a vision of where international legal practice should venture in the future. In learning from and amalgamating the dominant trends in different areas of international and domestic law, this article proposes that due diligence could exist as a secondary rule of general international law. By formulating and applying due diligence as a secondary rule, there is potential to develop the general international law applicable to determining state responsibility for the conduct of non-state actors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Achmad Irwan Hamzani ◽  
Kanti Rahayu ◽  
Tani Haryadi ◽  
Nur Khasanah ◽  
Havis Aravik

The political direction of the law in Indonesia in the development of national law simplifies legislation. The scope of national legal development is not only through legislation. There is the functionalization of the law that lives in society. The purpose of the research describes the political urgency of law in the development of national law and reviews the political direction of national law development law. This research uses a philosophical approach, namely to examine the law from the ideal side in the form of an idea of the direction of national law politics in the future. The results of this study show that the politics of law is necessary to provide direction in the development of national law. Each country has a legal political direction whose role as the basic policy of state organizers to determine the direction, shape, and content of the law to be established. Legal politics as a strategy of the formation process, as well as the implementation of laws based on the national legal system to achieve the goals and ideals of the state. The political direction of the law in Indonesia in the development of national law simplifies legislation. The scope of the development of the national legal system can be through legislation and functionalization of the living law. The political direction of the law in Indonesia in the development of national law simplifies the process of legislation. The impact will only be a successful legal state in law-making, but weak in law in action. The implication of this study is to expand the political direction of national law which includes the functionalization of the living law. By functionalizing "the living law", the resulting law is rooted in the legal consciousness of society.


2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-238
Author(s):  
Sergei Iu. Marochkin

AbstractIn this article, the author discusses the problem of ensuring equality and non-discrimination in a legal system. Equality and non-discrimination constitute universally recognized standards in the protection of human rights. At the same time, one can hardly assert that the universal community has put an end to discrimination. The author considers the problem as applied to the Russian legal system. The standard is incorporated in the Russian Constitution still remains topical in Russia. Based on his analysis of legislation and judicial practice, the author concludes that the problem reveals itself on the levels of both law-making and law application, the latter including administration of justice. As one of the conclusion, the author raises a question: is legal discrimination inherent in a legal system like other negative phenomena, such as delinquency, incoherencies, lacunas, defects, conflicts of legal norms and breaches of law-making procedural rules?


Author(s):  
Marc Galanter
Keyword(s):  
System P ◽  
The Law ◽  
Do So ◽  

This article proposes some conjectures about the way in which the basic architecture of the legal system creates and limits the possibilities of using the system as a means of redistributive change. Specifically, the question is under what conditions litigation can be redistributive, taking litigation in the broadest sense of the presentation of claims to be decided by courts. Because of differences in their size, differences in the state of the law, and differences in their resources, some of the actors in society have many occasions to utilize the courts; others do so only rarely. One can divide these actors into those claimants who have only occasional recourse to the courts (one-shotters) and repeat players who are engaged in many similar litigations over time. The article then looks at alternatives to the official litigation system.


Author(s):  
Ilias Bantekas ◽  
Efthymios Papastavridis

This chapter briefly discusses the nature of the international legal system. The premise is that the structure of the international legal system is fundamentally different from that of national legal order: contrary to the vertical structure encountered in domestic settings, in international law the structure is horizontal. States enjoy sovereign equality, while both international law-making and international adjudication are based on the consent of the States. There are various theories that have attempted to describe the nature of the international law, including naturalism, positivism, formalism, and realism. Also significant is the existence of a certain hierarchy in the international legal system, in the sense that there are some peremptory norms of international law, such as the prohibition of torture and genocide, to which there is no derogation.


Author(s):  
Ilias Bantekas ◽  
Efthymios Papastavridis

This chapter briefly discusses the nature of the international legal system. The premise is that the structure of the international legal system is fundamentally different from that of national legal order: contrary to the vertical structure encountered in domestic settings, in international law the structure is horizontal. States enjoy sovereign equality, while both international law-making and international adjudication are based on the consent of the States. There are various theories that have attempted to describe the nature of the international law, including naturalism, positivism, formalism, and realism. Significant is also the existence of a certain hierarchy in the international legal system, in the sense that there are some peremptory norms of international law, such as the prohibition of torture and genocide, to which there is no derogation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 94-140
Author(s):  
Nigel Foster

This chapter takes an overall view of the EU legal order and examines its legal system, including the elements which are either different from or similar to member states’ legal systems. It begins by taking an overall view of the EU legal order, the different forms of EU law, and the various sources of law contributing to this legal order, in particular now the rich source of human and fundamental rights in the EU legal order. It considers the non-strictly legally binding rules known as ‘soft law’. It also looks at the ways or processes by which the binding laws are made and reviews alternative decision-making and law-making developments.


Author(s):  
Paul Craig ◽  
Gráinne de Búrca

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. The EU develops policy through regulations, directives, and decisions. Any developed legal system must have a mechanism for testing the legality of such measures. This chapter focuses on access to justice and review of legality by the EU Courts. There are a number of ways in which EU norms can be challenged, but the principal Treaty provision is Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (ex Article 230 EC). Five conditions must be satisfied before an act can successfully be challenged: (i) the relevant body must be amenable to judicial review; (ii) the act has to be of a kind that is open to challenge; (iii) the institution or person making the challenge must have standing to do so; (iv) there must be illegality of a type mentioned in Article 263(2); and (v) the challenge must be brought within the time limit indicated in Article 263(6).


Author(s):  
Roger J.R. Levesque

This chapter details how the legal system applies the legal developments to racial classifications, with a focus on school diversity and segregation. That analysis centers on the extent to which the government retains a compelling interest to assert a need for differential treatment and the extent to which the government’s actions reach the intended goals of furthering that compelling interest. To do so, the analysis proceeds in two directions, which reveal how the legal system raises questions that readily lend themselves to empirical formulations. The chapter concludes by presenting some of the key challenges raised by empirical evaluations of legal rationales, which sets the stage for the remainder of the book.


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