Judicial opinion

About: Judicial opinion is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5300 publications have been published within this topic receiving 64803 citations.

The Responsive Legislature: Public Opinion and Law Making in a Highly Disciplined Legislature

Abstract: This article analyses how institutional and contextual factors explain the approval of presidential initiatives – presidential legislative success – in highly disciplined and cartelized assemblies. Of particular importance is to test whether public opinion, the electoral cycle and the use of different institutional rules affect the approval of presidential initiatives in Congress. Using a multilevel Bayesian model of legislative success, I model bill approval rates at individual and aggregate levels. This strategy is extremely flexible, allowing us to disentangle the different institutional and contextual factors that determine the approval of presidential initiatives in the Argentine Congress.

The Life of the Law: Judicial Politics and Legal Change

Abstract: To what extent is legal change influenced by judicial politics? This question, as initially posed by legal realists, provided the stimulus for much of the early study of the judicial process Although judicial scholars have since explored the impact of judicial policy views, the litigation environment, and the political environment, no systematic analysis of the impact of these factors on legal change has been undertaken. I develop a measure of legal change and use it to test the impact of judicial politics by examining search and seizure cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1962 and 1989 Using a multinomial logit model, I find that several aspects of the judicial process, particularly the Court's political composition, legal constraints, litigant resources, attorney experience, amicus support, and presidential preferences, affect the direction of legal change.

The Living Constitution

Abstract: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence-a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law-one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.

Public Opinion and the Classical Tradition

Abstract: The speculative approach to public opinion characteristic of the last century and the current empirical approach may be seen as supplementary rather than antithetical. Modern research techniques can confirm and develop notions advanced by classical writers, while authors such as Dicey andBryce can help direct present-day researchers to significant problems and suggest new ways of analyzing empirical data. Merging of the two approaches will hasten the development of a more adequate theory of public opinion.

Human Rights and the South African Legal Order

Abstract: As an Advocate of the Supreme Court, John Dugard observes the South African legal order daily in operation. In this book he provides a thorough description and probing analysis of the workings of the system. He places South Africa's legal order in a comparative context, examining the climate of legal opinion, crucial judicial decisions, and their significance in relation to contemporary thought and practice in England, America, and elsewhere. He also considers South Africa's laws in the light of its history, politics, and culture. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.