scholarly journals Was Duplessis Right?

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-436
Author(s):  
Roderick A. Macdonald

Given the inclination of legal scholars to progressively displace the meaning of a judicial decision from its context toward abstract propositions, it is no surprise that at its fiftieth anniversary, Roncarelli v. Duplessis has come to be interpreted in Manichean terms. The complex currents of postwar society and politics in Quebec are reduced to a simple story of good and evil in which evil is incarnated in Duplessis’s “persecution” of Roncarelli. In this paper the author argues for a more nuanced interpretation of the case. He suggests that the thirteen opinions delivered at trial and on appeal reflect several debates about society, the state and law that are as important now as half a century ago. The personal socio-demography of the judges authoring these opinions may have predisposed them to decide one way or the other; however, the majority and dissenting opinions also diverged (even if unconsciously) in their philosophical leanings in relation to social theory (internormative pluralism), political theory (communitarianism), and legal theory (pragmatic instrumentalism). Today, these dimensions can be seen to provide support for each of the positions argued by Duplessis’s counsel in Roncarelli given the state of the law in 1946.

Author(s):  
Ю. М. Оборотов

В современной методологии юриспруденции происходит переход от изучения состо­яний ее объекта, которыми выступают право и государство, к постижению этого объек­та в его изменениях и превращениях. Две подсистемы методологии юриспруденции, подсистема обращенная к состоянию права и государства; и подсистема обращенная к изменениям права и государства, — получают свое отображение в концептуальной форме, методологических подходах, методах, специфических понятиях. Показательны перемены в содержании методологии юриспруденции, где определяю­щее значение имеют методологические подходы, определяющие стратегию исследова­тельских поисков во взаимосвязи юриспруденции с правом и государством. Среди наи­более характерных подходов антропологический, аксиологический, цивилизационный, синергетический и герменевтический — определяют плюралистичность современной методологии и свидетельствуют о становлении новой парадигмы методологии юриспру­денции.   In modern methodology of jurisprudence there is a transition from the study the states of its object to its comprehension in changes and transformations. Hence the two subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence: subsystem facing the states of the law and the state as well as their components and aspects; and subsystem facing the changes of the law and the state in general and their constituents. These subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence receive its reflection in conceptual form, methodological approaches, methods, specific concepts. Methodology of jurisprudence should not be restricted to the methodology of legal theory. In this regard, it is an important methodological question about subject of jurisprudence. It is proposed to consider the subject of jurisprudence as complex, covering both the law and the state in their specificity, interaction and integrity. Indicative changes in the content methodology of jurisprudence are the usage of decisive importance methodological approaches that govern research strategy searches in conjunction with the law and the state. Among the most characteristic of modern development approaches: anthropological, axiological, civilization, synergistic and hermeneutic. Modern methodology of jurisprudence is pluralistic in nature alleging various approaches to the law and the state. Marked approaches allow the formation of a new paradigm methodology of jurisprudence.


2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Samson

The informal economy is typically understood as being outside the law. However, this article develops the concept ‘social uses of the law’ to interrogate how informal workers understand, engage and deploy the law, facilitating the development of more nuanced theorizations of both the informal economy and the law. The article explores how a legal victory over the Johannesburg Council by reclaimers of reusable and recyclable materials at the Marie Louise landfill in Soweto, South Africa shaped their subjectivities and became bound up in struggles between reclaimers at the dump. Engaging with critical legal theory, the author argues that in a social world where most people do not read, understand, or cite court rulings, the ‘social uses of the law’ can be of greater import than the actual judgement. This does not, however, render the state absent, as the assertion that the court sanctioned particular claims and rights is central to the reclaimers’ social uses of the law. Through the social uses of the law, these reclaimers force us to consider how and why the law, one of the cornerstones of state formation, cannot be separated from the informal ways it is understood and deployed. The article concludes by sketching a research agenda that can assist in developing a more relational understanding of the law and the informal economy.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Morse

How to respond justly to the dangers persistent violent offenders present is a vexing moral and legal issue. On the one hand, we wish to reduce predation; on the other, we want to treat predators fairly. The central theme of this paper is that it is difficult to achieve both goals without compromising one of them, and that both are being seriously undermined. I begin by explaining the legal theory, doctrine and practice governing dangerous offenders (DO) and demonstrate that the law leaves a gap in the ability to confine them. Next I explore the means by which the law has overtly or covertly sought to fill the gap. Many of these measures, especially the new form of civil commitment for sexual predators, dangerously conflate moral and medical categories. I conclude that pure preventive detention is more common than we usually assume, but that this practice violates fundamental assumptions concerning liberty under the American constitutional regime.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Giglio

Restitution for civil wrongs, also known as restitutionary damages, is a legal response through which the defendant’s wrongful gain is awarded to the claimant. James Edelman has recently advocated two different restitutionary responses for wrongs. One response, termed ‘restitutionary damages’, would aim to compel the wrongdoer to give back to the victim a wrongful gain, whereas the other response, ‘disgorgement damages’, would oblige the wrongdoer to give up a wrongful gain for the benefit of the claimant.In the first case, the claimant would obtain what should have never left his assets. In the second case, the claimant would be the beneficiary of a judicial decision according to which a wrongful gain should not be kept by the wrongdoer. In this essay, I seek to demonstrate that this taxonomy cannot be accepted. I argue that Edelman’s ‘disgorgement damages’ are the only true example of restitution for wrongs, whereas his ’restitutionary damages’ are simply compensatory damages which are quantified in a particular fashion. Edelman’s ‘restitutionary damages’ might appear to deprive the defendant of his gain, and thus to achieve a restitutionary goal. Yet they nullify the victim’s loss and therefore have a compensatory nature. They are ‘pseudo-restitutionary damages’. In opposition to the dual theory, I submit a model of restitutionary damages based upon a single response which is coherent with the tenets of corrective justice. Given that it deals mainly with Edelman’s ‘restitutionary damages’, this article is not so much about restitution for wrongs but rather about compensation, which is what Edelman’s ‘restitutionary damages’ really concerns. The theory which I propose, based upon a single restitutionary response for wrongs, solves the taxonomic incoherence of Edelman’s dual theory. It also reflects the law as we find it, being supportable by reference to the available judicial authorities.


2006 ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek

In first chapters of this article MacIntyre?s view of ethics is analyzed, together with his critics of liberalism as philosophical and political theory, as well as dominant ideological conception. In last chapters MacIntyre?s view of the relation between politics and ethics is considered, along with the critical review of his theoretical positions. Macintyre?s conception is regarded on the one hand as very broad, because the entire morality is identified with ethical life, while on the other hand it is regarded as too narrow since it excludes certain essential aspects of deliberation which refers to the sphere of individual rights, the relations between communities, as well as distribution of goods within the state.


2019 ◽  
pp. 22-151
Author(s):  
Sudhanshu Ranjan

Judges are not above the law. Like the other institutions of the State, the judiciary must be accountable. Chief Justice Edward Coke told King James I point blank that was not above the law and quoted jurist Bracton, Non-sub homine sed sub deo et lege. (The King is under no man, save under God and the law.) Ironically, judges themselves don’t appear to be following this dictum giving an impression that they are above the law. The judiciary should be accountable according to its own reasonings employed for holding all other institutions to account. But it abhors the idea of accountability for itself in the name of its independence. It is a misnomer as independence and accountability are complementary, not antagonistic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 299-306
Author(s):  
Tina Frühauf

The year 1988 saw the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht and 1989 the fall of the Wall. During these years the Leipziger Synagogalchor’s national and international performances and exposure reached an all-time peak. But these years also marked other turning points. The year 1988 was the last year the choir officially functioned as Chor des Verbandes, though as representative of Jewish culture it continued to cater to the GDR’s increasing fixation with foreign politics. Indeed, the choir traveled westward multiple times, with tours to the other Germany in 1988 and 1989. It thus aided the state’s attempts to transmit the image of an antifascist society with a vibrant Jewish culture. In reality, the choir’s ever more dominant presence paralleled a steep decline of the Jewish communities, a situation the state was fully aware of.


Semiotica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (209) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Augusto Ponzio

AbstractIt is not with the State that personal responsibility arises towards the other. According to Emmanuel Levinas, the other is every single human being I am responsible for, and I am this responsibility for him. The other, my fellow, is the first comer. But I do not live in a world with just one single “first comer”; there is always another other, a third, who is also my other, my fellow. Otherness, beginning with this third, is a plurality. Proximity as responsibility is a plurality. There is a need for justice. There is the obligation to compare unique and incomparable others. This is what is hidden, unsaid, implied in legal discourse. But recourse to comparison among that which cannot be compared, among that which is incomparable is justified by love of justice for the other. It is this justification that confers a sense to law, which is always dura lex, and to the statement that citizens are equal before the law. From this point of view, State justice is always imperfect with respect to human rights understood as the rights of the other, of every other in his absolute difference, in his incomparable otherness.


Author(s):  
Nathan Widder

This chapter examines Friedrich Nietzsche's political philosophy, first by focusing on his claim that the ‘death of God’ inaugurates modern nihilism. It then explains Nietzsche's significance for political theory by situating him, on the one hand, against the Platonist and Christian traditions that dominate political philosophy and, on the other hand, with contemporary attempts to develop a new political theory of difference. The chapter also considers Nietzsche's genealogical method and proceeds by analysing the three essays of On the Genealogy of Morals, along with his views on good and bad, good and evil, slave morality, the ascetic ideal, and the nihilism of modern secularism. Finally, it reviews contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche's relation and relevance to political theory and how his philosophy has inspired a broader set of trends that has come to be known as ‘the ontological turn in political theory’.


1956 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 69-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Elton

TWO views are current concerning the political views of Thomas Cromwell. One—the more common—holds that he believed in absolute monarchy and desired to establish it in England. The Abbé Constant, summarizing (as was his wont) other people's views in language free from other people's reservations, stated it most starkly: he thought that Cromwell aimed at making Henry ‘tout-puissant’ and that his ministry was the golden age of Tudor despotism. Quite recently, an ingenious theory, buttressed with a misunderstood document, based itself on this general conviction. This view has suffered curiously little from the growing realization that the Henrician Reformation rested on conscious co-operation with Parliament and that the propagandists of the time never produced a theory of absolute monarchy. Pollard, the defender of Henry VIII's constitutionalism, seems to have held that, though the king had no ambitions for a genuine despotism, Cromwell certainly harboured such ideas. The other view, recently given support by Dr. Parker, holds that Cromwell did not bother at all about theoretical issues, that his ‘resolutely Philistine type of mind’ despised political theory, and that he never thought beyond the establishment of a sovereign monarchy. Thus, too, Mr. Baumer thought that Cromwell saw in Parliament ‘only a means of executing the royal will’, but also that he ‘had no theoretical views whatever about the relation of the king to the law’—passages hard to reconcile but suggestive of Dr. Parker's views rather than M. Constant's.


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