Showing papers on "Constitution published in 1971"

Schools and inequality

Abstract: Present educational finance policies can be construed to be in violation of the equal Protection Clause of the United states Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. Assisted by the National Urban Coalition, the authors of this book have compiled a great deal of information and analysis on school services in the state of Michigan--information which may typify such services throughout the country. Their research was conducted initially to serve as evidence in a suit filed by the Detroit Board of Education which alleged dscrimination in the state's distribution of resources to schools: "It may be that the courts will be persuaded to act on the matter, or it may be that the logic of the interpretation will nevertheless be effective in convincing state legislatures themselves of the need to act. In any event, it is our position that the specific arguments made to courts and legislative bodies should embody research of the type illustrated by this book."

...And Then There Were None: The Diminution of the Federal Jury

Abstract: In a dramatic move sponsored by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, seventeen of the federal district courts will reduce the size of their civil juries from twelve members to six.' Immediately following the Chief Justice's announcement, Representative William Lloyd Scott of Virginia introduced a bill in Congress to provide for six-member juries in all federal trials, both civil and criminal, except in cases involving capital offenses.2 On the state level, the Nev Jersey Supreme Court called for an amendment to the state constitution that would allowv the legislature to reduce the size of all juries and to end jury trials in civil cases. Moreover, at least one of the federal district courts has already been experimenting with six-member juries in criminal trials, albeit by encouraged agreement between prosecution and defense.4 Juries with less than twelve members, of course, are not foreign to our experience. Some state courts try small civil claims and minor criminal cases before six-member juries;5 four states even try non-

The Influence of Parliamentary Behavior on Regime Stability: Some Conceptual Clarifications

Abstract: It is hardly novel to call attention to the influence of parliaments on political stability. Parliaments originated as assemblages convened to gain consent for a king's government. "The deepest roots of (the British) Parliament are not to be found in legislation, nor even in the supply of finance," a recent work notes, but in the king's need for "some process, however rough and ready, by which he could obtain the consent, or at least the acquiescence, of the influential sections of the people to his acts of government."1 Parliament's assertion of lawmaking power in seventeenth century England, and the American colonists' use of representative assemblies in the eighteenth century to assert their interests against royal governors, caused the constitution makers of the United States to emphasize the policy-making functions of the institution which they significantly called the legislature. But in Great Britain lawmaking never came to be regarded as the distinctive activity of Parliament, even in the great nineteenth century analyses of that body. Both John Stuart Mill and Walter Bagehot saw Parliament more as a consensus-building than as a policy-making institution. Mill wrote that Parliament was "radically unfit" for "the function of governing." He explained that the importance of Parliament was as "the nation's Committee of Grievances, and its Congress of Opinions," where all political views are:

The Canadian political system: Environment, structure, & process

Abstract: The legislative function of a political system is to make laws. In Canada that function is performed, according to the constitution, by Parliament. The executive function of a political system is to put the laws into effect, to carry out or to execute acts of Parliament. In Canada, the executive power is defined by section 9 of the BNA Act: "the Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen." Formally, therefore, the executive function in Canada is performed by the Queen, and we can be said to have a monarchical form of government. The most significant implication of this fact is the consequent transferal of all prerogative rights of the Crown in Britain to the Crown in respect of Canada. This statement, however, requires some explanation, particularly the terms 'the Crown and prerogative rights.'

Erskine May's treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament

Abstract: Part I. Constitution, powers and privileges of Parliament. The constituent parts of Parliament. Elections. Disqualification for membership of either House. Power and jurisdiction of Parliament. The privilege of Parliament. Privilege of freedom of speech. Privilege of freedom from arrest. Penal jurisdiction of both Houses. Contempts. Complaints of breach of privilege or contempt. The courts and parliamentary privilege. Part II: Proceedings in Parliament. - public business. Precincts and organisation of Parliament. A new Parliament and opening and close of session. A sitting: general arrangements in the House of Commons. The control and distribution of time in the House of Commons. Outline of items of business in programme of sitting of the House of Commons. The process of debate in the House of Commons by Motion, Question and Decision. Maintenance of order during debate in the House of Commons. Methods of curtailing debate. Rules governing the conduct of Members. Organisation and conduct of business in the House of Lords. Proceedings of Parliament in passing public bills. Delegated legislation. Formal communications between Crown and Parliament and between Lords and Commons. The system of committees. Witnesses and Parliament. Financial procedure - general. Expenditure - supply. Expenditure - financial resolutions. Ways and Means and Finance Bills. The House of Lords and charges. Public petitions. Parliament, the European Communities and international assemblies. Part III: Proceedings in Parliament - private business. Preliminary view of private bills. Preliminary proceedings in both Houses on private bills. Petitions in favour of, against, or relating to private bills in the House of Commons and the Court of Referees. Proceedings in the House of Commons on private bills. Proceedings in the House of Lords on private and personal bills, Royal Assent and classification of Private Acts. Provisional orders and special procedure orders. Private legislation procedure (Scotland). Appendix: House of Commons standing orders relative to public business.

British government and politics

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: the context of British politics. Part 2 Parties, pressure groups and the electorate: case study of the British electoral system - the 1992 election the political parties - organization, social structure. Part 3 Government and parliament: the constitution the structure of government parliament - the House of Commons, the monarchy and the House of Lords. Part 4 The workings of government: the treasury and national finance the central administration nationalization and privatization local government regional government and the European Community. Part 5 Conclusion: the nature of the British political system.

The constitution of japan

Abstract: A Constitution can be seen as a reflection or effect of the power relations existing in a given contry. In this sense, when ever a new power relation comes in to being, commonly a new constitution has to repleace the old one. In Japan the old Meiji Constitution of 1889 was replaced by the so called Mac Athur Constitution of 1947

When and why does the Grundnorm Change

Abstract: In Pakistan, Uganda and Southern Rhodesia, courts have held themselves entitled to declare that the effect of a successful revolution has been to change the law in their respective jurisdictions. Judges appointed under one constitution have held themselves to be bound to recognise the validity of laws promulgated under a different constitution; the judge's own political opinions have been said to be irrelevant.

Republicanism and Slavery: Origins of the Three-Fifths Clause in the United States Constitution

Abstract: A MERICAN historians have become increasingly aware of how the institution of slavery and the problems of race created tension in Western culture.' During the Revolutionary crisis of the eighteenth century when new constitutional principles and structures emerged in North America, slavery inevitably created friction in politics. Some historians have argued that the three-fifths clause in the United States Constitution was a product of significant conflict over the issue of slavery in the Convention of I787. Others attach little importance to the clause. It is the purpose of this essay to analyze these arguments and to introduce a new interpretation of the discord that led to the inclusion of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. The clause ordained that three-fifths of the number of slaves in a state would be added to the number of free citizens, including bond servants but excluding Indians not taxed, to determine how many congressmen the state would send to the House of Representatives. The same formula specified the amount of direct taxes the state would pay to the national government.2 The usual interpretation of the political conflict behind the establishment of this procedure in the Constitution is as follows: northerners wanted to count slaves in determining

Primary Education during the Colombian Federation: The School Reform of 1870

Abstract: RADITIONALLY, HISTORIANS HAVE DISMISSED the Colombian Federation (1863-1886) as an era of hopeless civil warfare which prepared the way for the rule of Rafael Nufiiez and Regeneration. It is clear that the Rionegro Constitution of 1863, imposed by a faction of Liberals known as Radicals, so limited the central government that it was powerless to maintain order among the nine "sovereign states."' The anti-clericalism of the government heightened Conservative animosity and alienated more moderate Liberals. Regional uprisings were frequent. In his book La federation en Colombia, Jose de la Vega lists, for the twentythree year period, one civil war, twelve revolutions, two coups d'etat, and six years of widespread agitation.2 While no one would deny that political confusion was prevalent during the Federation, an over-emphasis on anarchy has obscured at least one positive accomplishment of the Radical regime-the expansion of popular education. The Organic Decree of November 1, 1870, was Colombia's first attempt to establish a national system of obligatory, lay education. This decree began an intensive school reform that one writer has called "the golden age of Colombian education."3 Periodicals of the day reflected the public concern over primary instruction that characterized this era. Opposition to the reform contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War of 1876-1877 and hastened the decline of the Radicals. A review of the reform movement-its background, its controversial nature, its successes and failures -gives new insight into the Federation Era as well as revealing a significant episode in the development of Colombian education.

An Investigation of the Inarticulate: Philadelphia's White Oaks

Abstract: IT is a truism that the literature of American history has always reflected, to some degree, the times in which it was written. To illustrate this point, the impact of Populism and Progressivism on historical writing is usually cited. These movements produced class and sectional conflict in American society; historians writing in their midst discovered class and sectional conflict in American history. The Constitution was portrayed as the covenant of an economic class; the Revolution was pictured as triggering a struggle for supremacy in American society between west and east, rich and poor. Historians writing during the I940s and I950S -drastically revised this scenario, but of course theirs was a drastically different world, the era of World War II and the Cold War, a time when the United States was constantly threatened by powerful foreign enemies. These external challenges produced a high degree of cohesion in the country, which historians (so their later critics alleged) began identifying as the chief characteristic of early American society. The people of the American colonies, according to the so-called consensus historians of the I940s and I950S, were distinguished more by their similarities than by their differences; they agreed about the fundamental objectives of colonial society, they shared the same ideals and aspirations, and most of them occupied the same middle rung on the socio-economic ladder. The historians of this era reexamined the Constitution and found it to be less a class compact than it had formerly been considered, and they tended to see the Revolution as a contest for home rule rather than a conflict over who should rule at home. Looking at the present period, one would not hesitate to predict the kind of history it would produce. We are living in one of the most divisive decades in American history, a time of conflict between races, classes, and age groups. Therefore, what is surprising is not that historians are

An essay on the trial by jury

Abstract: This volume, it is presumed by the author, gives what will generally be considered satisfactory evidence, though not all the evidence, of what the Common Law trial by jury really is. In a future volume, if it should be called for, it is designed to corroborate the grounds taken in this; give a concise view of the English constitution; show the unconstitutional character of the existing government in England, and the unconstitutional means by which the trial by jury has been broken down in practice; prove that, neither in England nor the United States, have legislatures ever been invested by the people with any authority to impair the powers, change the oaths, or (with few exceptions) abridge the jurisdiction, of juries, or select jurors on any other than Common Law principles; and, consequently, that, in both countries, legislation is still constitutionally subordinate to the discretion and consciences of Common Law juries, in all cases, both civil and criminal, in which juries sit. The same volume will probably also discuss several political and legal questions, which will naturally assume importance if the trial by jury should be reestablished.

Freedom of Information and the Evidentiary Use of Film in Japan: Law and Sociopolitics in an East Asian Democracy

Abstract: This study sets forth the post-1945 development and present status of Japanese constitutional and procedural law on court-mass media relations, while analyzing aspects of the interaction between law and sociopolitical thought and behavior. A recent and dramatic illustration of the issues is provided by the Hakata Station Film Case: A Fukuoka court's subpoena (August 29, 1969) for newsfilm taken during a student-police encounter occasioned conflict between Japan's mass media and courts; the dispute was resolved by a film seizure (March 4, 1970) three months after the Supreme Court had upheld the subpoena's constitutionality. The media maintain that Article 21 of the Constitution (freedom of expression) gives them the right to determine when their used or unused television film or still photographs may be employed as court evidence, even in the absence of privileged communications. This and other court cases considered, arising from Japan's perennial demonstrations, illustrate a strong tendency toward in-group unanimity, new problems in news and evidence gathering, and the operation of a non-Western legal system influenced by Japanese, European, and American traditions.

Traditional and Constitutional Law: A Study of Change in Laos

Abstract: Two years of observation-participation in Laos by the author revealed that social problem-solving occurs within two systems of law. On one hand a traditional unwritten law, taught by the family and Buddhist monks, operates within the Lao village. In addition there is the written code of the central !government, practiced in special government buildings located at the provincial capitals, serving to further isolate it from the people. Both systems of law coexist in time and space. Certain problems fall naturally within the province of traditional law, while others are relegated to the law of the central government. This paper seeks to demonstrate the situations appropriate to each system and to show their separate yet integrated modes of operation. Specific examples mostly originate from Vientiane province. The Royal Kingdom of Laos has a population of between 1.5 and 2.5 million people within its 91,000 square miles. About half the population are ethnic Lao; the remainder are comprised of a variety of Mon-Khmer, protoMalayan, Lao-Thai, and Sino-Tibetan tribal groups. Popularly chosen headmen, called nai ban, lead the 200-400 people in the village. Consensus, rather than mere majority vote, is sought among all adult men in the village in problems of community concern. Several villages within a day's walk are similarly led by a tasseng, also chosen by the local populace for his individual character and abilities. Superimposed on this highly democratic local government is the central government. Its legitimacy originates in the person of the monarch, who because of his civil and supernatural authority is the temporal proprietor of the country and its people. A constitution, written in 1947 and revised in 1956, has been signed by the king. It delegates executive power to a prime minister and his cabinet, legislative power to a popularly elected National

Congress, the President, and the War Powers

Abstract: The issue before us is the constitutional authority of Congress and the President to commit forces to armed combat and questions related to such authority. These questions have been the subject of considerable debate and scholarly attention.' Unfortunately, they are often approached polemically, with one side arguing the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and the other asserting Congress' constitutional power to declare war; the implication often given is that these powers are somehow incompatible. On the contrary, the framers of the Constitution intended that there be a proper balance between the roles of the President and Congress in decisions to use force in the conduct of foreign policy. In discussing these issues, I will first review the historical background of the war powers question, beginning with the Constitution itself and tracing the practice of the nation throughout our history. Then, placing the war powers issue in the modern context, I will discuss the issues which bear upon the exercise of presidential and congressional powers now and in the foreseeable future. Finally, from this perspective, I will describe what I believe the national interest requires in terms of a proper balance between the President and the Congress. At the outset I would like to stress my belief that cooperation and consultation between the executive and legislative branches is the heart of the political process as conceived by the framers of the Constitution. In the absence of such cooperation, no legislation which seeks to define constitutional powers more rigidly can be effective. Conversely, given such cooperation, such legislation is unnecessary. The execu-

Women's Role in the Soviet Union: Ideology and Reality

Abstract: Nowadays the Soviet Union leads the world in making use of the energies and talents of women. Women make significant contributions in all sectors of the economy and probably work harder in the Soviet Union than anywhere else in the world. This widespread employment of women was made possible by a number of unusual circumstances. First of all, the basic tenets of communist ideology-as postulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engelshad stressed that the first example of class oppression was that of the female by the male and was caused by the existence of private property and consequently real freedom for women was possible only through communism.1 Accordingly, theoreticians regarded the Bolshevik Revolution as the opportunity to liberate women from their bonds of servitude. Thus the Revolution of 1917 removed all the legal restrictions that had placed women in an inferior position, recognized their equality with men, and promised to provide them with economic employment on an equal basis with men. The first Soviet Constitution of 1918 proclaimed in Article 22 the equality of all citizens in the Soviet Republic -regardless of sex, race, nationality-and established in Article 64 the right of women to elect or be elected to the Soviets on an equal footing with men.2 These changes were spelled out again in Article 122 of the Constitution of 1936, which accorded women equal rights and an equal footing with men in all spheres of political, economic, social, and cultural activity.3 All of these changes were possible because Lenin himself was interested in emancipating women and giving them equality with men, 1 Women and Communism: Selections from the Writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin,

"The Nineteenth Century Constitution 1815-1914, Documents and Commentary", H. J. Hanham, Cambridge 1969 : [recenzja] / Hubert Izdebski.

Abstract: Preface Table of documents Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. The theory of the constitution 2. Cabinet government 3. Parliament 4. Parties and elections 5. Central and local administration 6. The administration of justice 7. Church and State 8. Ireland Index.

Legislative Authority in the Soviet Political System

Abstract: It is a settled principle of Soviet constitutional law that the USSR Supreme Soviet is the supreme representative organ, the supreme legislative body, and the supreme executor of the people's sovereignty. The 1936 Constitution subordinates all other organs of government to the Supreme Soviet, and it alone, on the national level, has the right to form governments, pass laws, and amend the Constitution. The Constitution also stipulates, however, that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is "the vanguard of the workers in their struggle for the construction of a communist society and- constitutes the guiding core of all workers' organizations, public as well as governmental."' There is no doubt that the latter principle has been the operative one in Soviet politics since the Revolution. The party leadership has so effectively controlled the activities of all other political institutions that no serious challenge to its authority has ever been made, at least since the Workers' Opposition was crushed in the early 1920s. But recognition of this fact is only a starting point in analyzing Soviet politics, for the party leadership has never attempted to rule through the party apparatus alone. It has developed instead a wide range of subordinate institutions, through which, in varying degrees at different times, it has exercised its authority. In the legislative area, which is the focus of this essay, the USSR Supreme Soviet and its Presidium have been the primary vehicles for party rule. The functions of these bodies, and the relations between them, are formally regulated by the USSR Constitution, but throughout most of Soviet history party leaders have shown little concern for the specific provisions in the Constitution. During the past decade, however, the roles of the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium in the gathering of information, the formulation of legislative proposals, and their enactment into law have become subjects of widespread debate among Soviet officials and academicians. The terms of the debate are particularly significant in that they focus to an unprecedented extent on provisions of the Soviet Constitution as independent sources of authority in resolving questions of political structure and process. This essay will examine the nature and the sources of the conflict between the Supreme Soviet

Possible Kingdoms: The New England Town From the Perspective of Legal History

Abstract: Colonial historians have in recent years discovered, or at least made respectable, the study of the New England town-once the exclusive preserve of the genealogist and the local antiquarian. While most current work in this new field consists of the systematic development and analysis of data on the towns and their inhabitants, the process of synthesis and integration with the political and ideological trends that culminated in the Revolution has already begun. A foremost synthesizer is Michael Zuckerman, who, in Peaceable Kingdoms, contends that the towns of Massachusetts became the primary source of political power within the Province after the Crown took over the machinery of central government under the charter of 1691; that the power of the towns was maintained throughout the prerevolutionary period by the process of internal consensus and accommodation; that it was the British assault upon that power through the Intolerable Acts of 1774 which finally precipitated Revolution; and that the power of the towns fought the Revolution and was the foundation of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

Foreign Affairs: A Winning Issue in the Campaign for Ratification of the United States Constitution

Abstract: The work of the Philadelphia Convention in drafting the American Constitution during the hot summer of 1787 has been called a "miracle"-a miracle of statesmanship, of scholarly application, of political expertise.2 Just as miraculous, however, was the skill with which the proponents of constitutional reform presented their case to the public. It has been suggested that they worked so quickly that the opposition never had time to organize, that they were favored by the newspapers, that they benefited from the superior prestige of their leaders, and that perhaps they succeeded through sheer good fortune. All of this may be true. But in light of the difficulties which lay before them, they waged a shrewd campaign. They had to sell the country a completely new frame of government. Many whose approval they sought, moreover, were unfamiliar with continental problems and therefore unappreciative of the remedies offered. Most were sensi-