Constitution

About: Constitution is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 37828 publications have been published within this topic receiving 435603 citations.

The National Courts' Mandate in the European Constitution

Abstract: The reform of the European Constitution continues to dominate news headlines and has provoked a massive debate, unprecedented in the history of EU law. Against this backdrop Monica Claes' book offers a "bottom up" view of how the Constitution might work, taking the viewpoint of the national courts as her starting point, and at the same time returning to fundamental principles in order to interrogate the myths of Community law. Adopting a broad, comparative approach, she analyses the basic doctrines of Community law from both national constitutional perspectives as well as the more usual European perspective. It is only by combining the perspectives of the EU and national constitutions, she argues, that a complete picture can be obtained, and a solid theoretical base (constitutional pluralism) developed. Her comparative analysis encompasses the law in France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom and in the course of her inquiry discusses a wide variety of prominent problems. The book is structured around three main themes, coinciding with three periods in the development of the judicial dialogue between the ECJ and the national courts. The first focuses on the ordinary non-constitutional national courts and how they have successfully adapted to the mandates developed by the ECJ in Simmenthal and Francovich. The second examines the constitutional and other review courts and discusses the gradual transformation of the ECJ into a constitutional court, and its relationship to the national constitutional courts. The contrast is marked; these courts are not specifically empowered by the case law of the ECJ and have reacted quite differently to the message from Luxembourg, leaving them apparently on collision course with the ECJ in the areas of judicial Kompetenz Kompetenz and fundamental rights. The third theme reprises the first two and places them in the context of the current debate on the Constitution for Europe and the Convention, taking the perspective of the national courts as the starting point for a wide-ranging examination of EU's constitutional fundamentals. In so doing it argues that the new Constitution must accommodate the national perspective if it is to prove effective.

Women and Family Law Reform in India: Uniform Civil Code and Gender Equality

Abstract: While the Constitution of India guarantees equality as a Fundamental Right automatically voiding all laws inconsistent with Fundamental Rights 4 decades after adoption of the Constitution religious personal laws that discriminate against women still apply. Ostensibly supported by the Constitutional right to freedom of conscience guaranteed as a Fundamental Right which is claimed to encompass the right to be governed by religious personal laws the Constitution fails to resolve whether the religious nature of these laws prevents a secular State from interfering with them or whether the personal nature of these laws as distinct from territorial laws makes them immune to State control. The ambiguity permits contradictory claims and permits the State to act inconsistently to essentially similar claims of different communities. While Hindu personal law has been extensively reformed to frequently give equal legal rights to Hindu women the personal laws of other (minority) communities have remained untouched. While other explanations dominate (the communities religious laws are inviolate or there exists no demand for change) the real reason inequities continue is politics. After the British relinquished power the enterprise of making a nation out of so many disparate groups meant the promotion of national integration and establishment of the post-colonial States authority. Whether the State decides to reform the religious personal law of any community has been dependent upon considerations of national integration which has meant denying women equality. Yet the practice of selectively reforming religious personal laws has failed to facilitate the political goal of producing a unified nation. To ensure legal equality for women the State must first define the interrelation between the Constitution and the religious personal laws then assess the options available for ensuring legal equality of women: either to reform religious personal laws or sever the religious connection making them secular like all other civil laws.

Encyclopedia of American History

Abstract: The seventh edition of the "Encyclopedia of American History" updates this indispensable and classic reference book to cover the history of the United States from pre-Columbian times through the first year of the Clinton Administration. Unequaled in the amount of information contained within a single volume, and designed to be read as a narrative, the "Encyclopedia" chronicles all the essential facts of American history, from government and politics to science, thought and culture. The "Encyclopedia" is divided onto four parts: Part 1: "THE BASIC CHRONOLOGY" presents the main political and military events in the history of the United States, beginning with the era of discovery. It has been updated to reflect newly discovered facts and modern perspectives on domestic and foreign affairs. Part 2: "THE TOPICAL CHRONOLOGY" records the nonpolitical aspects of American life and has been extensively revised to include a newly titled section "Land, Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment, " as well as updated sections dealing with the American economy. A few of the topics covered in this section are the fine arts, religion, medicine, education, television and radio, immigration, population, United States expansion and Supreme Court decisions. Part 3: "NOTABLE AMERICAN BIOGRAPHIES" contains profiles of 450 influential Americans from all walks of life and their outstanding achievements. Part 4: "THE STRUCTURE OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT" includes tables of U.S Presidents and their cabinets, party strength in Congress from 1789, and Supreme Court justices, as well as the complete texts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. JeffreyB. Morris, is professor of law at the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center of Touro College. Associate editor for the last two revised editions of the "Encyclopedia of American History," Morris is the author of over a dozen books, including "Federal Justice in the Second Circuit" and "To Administer Justice on Behalf of All the People: The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1965-1990." He has been professor of political science at City College of the City University of New York and the University of Pennsylvania and visiting professor of law at the Brooklyn Law School. From 1976 to 1981 Morris served as the chief research associate to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in Burger's role as head of the federal court system. Richard B. Morris, (1904-1989) was Gouverneur Morris Professor of History at Columbia University and past president of the American Historical Association. Morris wrote more than 40 books spanning legal, labor, diplomatic, political and social history, including "The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence, The Forging of the Union 1781-1789, Witnesses at the Creation, Government and Labor in Early America" and "Studies in The History of American Law." He lectured throughout the world, serving as Fulbright Research Professor at the Sorbonne and Distinguished Professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin.