Majority opinion

About: Majority opinion is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4107 publications have been published within this topic receiving 54845 citations. The topic is also known as: opinion of the court.

The Public Supports Pricing If...A Synthesis of Public Opinion Studies on Tolling and Road Pricing

Abstract: The public debate on tolling and road pricing can often be shaped by a community's political nature and its interest groups, which also tend to obscure majority opinion on the issue. The complex subject of road pricing can often be transformed into an object of politicking by a very vocal minority. Pricing's transformation into a political issue has, rather than stimulate discussion, resulted in policies that fail to address the real issues of how to deal with global warming, congestion management, or infrastructure financing, despite superficial majority appeal. George Gallup, one of public opinion measurement's early pioneers, suggested that politicians "will be better able to represent...the general public by avoiding the kind of distorted picture sent to them...by overzealous pressure groups who claim to speak for all the people, but actually speak for themselves" through measurement of public opinion. Public opinion greatly influences policymakers, although the public may have little daily contact with the public agenda's many issues. What can be done? The author argues that an informed public is needed, and should say "we consent." But credible, available objective information on tolling and road pricing's benefits and challenges is still lacked by the public. In order for the public to accept a solution, it needs to understand the problems. Public opinion also needs to be tracked over time, particularly in the context of regional or local initiatives - from idea to implementation to ultimate public usage. Tracking support and opposition's nature across project type variations and documenting how changing values, new knowledge, or a new state of the world can shift public opinion is also important.

Why Has Judicial Review Failed in Japan

Abstract: There are two senses in which judicial review in Japan has failed. First, the Supreme Court of Japan strikes down laws so rarely that judicial review exists more in theory than in practice. Second, history demonstrates that the Court faces a very real risk of government noncompliance on the rare occasions that it does address politically important or sensitive constitutional issues. This Article critically evaluates a wide range of historical, cultural, political, and institutional explanations for the effective failure of judicial review in Japan. A number of the most frequently invoked explanations call for a considerable degree of skepticism. In particular, cultural explanations that emphasize the characteristics of “the Japanese” – such as their supposed penchant for group harmony and unwillingness to defy authority – tend to rest on inaccurate stereotypes, ignore the scope of social and political conflict in postwar Japan, and minimize the rationality and intelligence of individual judges. Meanwhile, historical explanations that emphasize such factors as the impact of the Cold War and the novelty of judicial review are increasingly difficult to maintain in light of both the passage of time and the counterexamples furnished by the experience of other countries. To a greater extent, the failure of Japanese judicial review is the product of interaction between the internal organization of the judiciary and the relatively conservative political environment in which the judiciary has long operated. For decades, an entrenched bureaucracy staffed by career judges has regulated the behavior of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court itself, in ways that have obviated more overt forms of political control. At least in the short to medium term, the Japanese Supreme Court is unlikely to discharge its responsibility for performing judicial review with greater vigor absent institutional reforms that reduce its dependence for essential resources upon this bureaucracy. The Article concludes by discussing a number of reforms that might have such a liberating effect on the Court.

Public Schools, Religious Establishments, and the U.S. Supreme Court An Examination of Policy Compliance

Abstract: The issue of devotional activity in the public schools has long been a staple of the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda, but knowledge of the local implementation of school prayer policy remains limited t...

A Century of Judicial Style: Changing Patterns in Judgment Writing on the High Court 1903-2001

Abstract: Empirical research into judicial decision-making of a court provides insights into the court's operation, and an analysis of the decisions of the High Court delivered from 1903 to 2001 has revealed clear trends. The length of reasons for decisions of the Court has increased from the beginning of the 1990s and peaked in the mid-to-late 1990s, and the level of joint, concurring and dissenting opinions have fluctuated over time and shown no clear trend.