Author: Rosalind Dixon Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108246362 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 471
Book Description
The 1996 South African Constitution was promulgated on 18th December 1996 and came into effect on 4th February 1997. Its aspirational provisions promised to transform South Africa's economy and society along non-racial and egalitarian lines. Following the twentieth anniversary of its enactment, this book, co-edited by Rosalind Dixon and Theunis Roux, examines the triumphs and disappointments of the Constitution. It explains the arguments in favor of the Constitution being replaced with a more authentically African document, untainted by the necessity to compromise with ruling interests predominant at the end of apartheid. Others believe it remains a landmark attempt to create a society based on social, economic, and political rights for all citizens, and that its true implementation has yet to be achieved. This volume considers whether the problems South Africa now faces are of constitutional design or implementation, and analyses the Constitution's external influence on constitutionalism in other parts of the world.
Author: Randy E. Barnett Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691159734 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost. Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people. As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond. This updated edition features an afterword with further reflections on individual popular sovereignty, originalist interpretation, judicial engagement, and the gravitational force that original meaning has exerted on the Supreme Court in several recent cases.
Author: Sandra Liebenberg Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd ISBN: 9780702184802 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 572
Book Description
Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, this scholarly work provides an in-depth and thorough analysis of the socio-economic rights jurisprudence of the newly democratic South Africa. The book explores how the judicial interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights can be more responsive to the conditions of systemic poverty and inequality characterising South African society. Based on meticulous research, the work marries legal analysis with perspectives from political philosophy and democratic theory.
Author: Pauline Maier Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 0684868555 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 608
Book Description
Drawing on the speeches and letters of the United States' founders, the author recounts the dramatic period after the Constitutional Convention and before the Constitution was finally ratified, describing the tumultuous events that took place in homes, taverns and convention halls throughout the colonies. By the author of American Scripture.
Author: David S. Law Publisher: ISBN: 110842709X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 611
Book Description
A broad-ranging, interdisciplinary, and context-rich exploration of the fields of constitutional studies and comparative constitutional law for research and teaching.
Author: Mary Sarah Bilder Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674055276 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 383
Book Description
No document depicts the Constitutional Convention’s charismatic figures, crushing disappointments, and miraculous triumphs with the force of Madison’s Notes. But how reliable is this account? Drawing on digital technologies and textual analysis, Mary Sarah Bilder reveals that Madison revised to a far greater extent than previously recognized.
Author: Rosalind Dixon Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 1785369210 Category : Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
This book provides unique insights into the practice of democratic constitutionalism in one of the world’s most legally and politically significant regions. It combines contributions from leading Latin American and global scholars to provide ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ insights about the lessons to be drawn from the distinctive constitutional experiences of countries in Latin America. In doing so, it also draws on a rich array of legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, it shows both the promise of democratic constitutions as a vehicle for social, economic and political change, and the variation in the actual constitutional experiences of different countries on the ground – or the limits to constitutions as a locus for broader social change.
Author: Charles M Fombad Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198906307 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
This book in the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law series provides a critical analysis of existing paradigms, concepts, and normative ideologies of modern African constitutional identity.
Author: Alicia Pastor y Camarasa Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040035752 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
This book examines the largely neglected but crucial role of transnational actors in democratic constitution-making. The writing or rewriting of constitutions is usually a key moment in democratic transitions. But how exactly does this take place? Most contemporary comparative constitutional literature draws on the concept of constituent power – the power of the people – to address this moment. But what this overlooks, this book argues, is the important role of external, transnational actors who tend to play a crucial role in the process. Drawing on sociolegal methodologies but informed by new legal realism, this book develops a new theoretical framework for examining the involvement of such actors in constitution-making. Empirically grounded, the book uncovers a more comprehensive picture of how constitution-making unfolds on the ground. Illuminating the power dynamics at play during the legal process, it reveals not only the wide range of external actors involved but also the continuity between decolonisation and post-Cold War constitution-making. This book, the first to provide an in-depth examination of external actor involvement in constitution-making, will appeal to scholars of constitutional law, sociolegal studies, law and development, and transitional justice.
Author: A.V. Dicey Publisher: Springer ISBN: 134917968X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 729
Book Description
A starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law, The Law of the Constitution elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions.
Author: Rosalind Dixon
Author: Randy E. Barnett
Author: Sandra Liebenberg
Author: Pauline Maier
Author: David S. Law
Author: Mary Sarah Bilder
Author: Rosalind Dixon
Author: Charles M Fombad
Author: Alicia Pastor y Camarasa
Author: A.V. Dicey