Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspective (Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy)

Cambridge University Press, 5/24/2013
EAN 9781107693746, ISBN10: 1107693748

Paperback, 452 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm
Language: English

In the early twenty-first century, courts have become versatile actors in the governance of many constitutional democracies, and judges play a variety of roles in politics and policy making. Assembling papers penned by academic specialists on high courts around the world, and presented during a year-long Andrew W. Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, this volume maps the roles in governance that courts are undertaking and the ways they have come to matter in the political life of their nations. It offers empirically rich accounts of dramatic judicial actions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, exploring the political conditions and judicial strategies that have fostered those assertions of power and evaluating when and how courts' performance of new roles has been politically consequential. By focusing on the content and consequences of judicial power, the book advances a new agenda for the comparative study of courts.

Part I. Expanding Judicial Roles in New or Restored Democracies
1. The politics of courts in democratization
four junctures in Asia Tom Ginsburg
2. Fragmentation? Defection? Legitimacy? Explaining judicial roles in post-communist 'colored revolutions' Alexei Trochev
3. Constitutional authority and judicial pragmatism
politics and law in the evolution of South Africa's constitutional court Heinz Klug
4. Distributing political power
the constitutional tribunal in post-authoritarian Chile Druscilla L. Scribner
5. The transformation of the Mexican Supreme Court into an arena for political contestation Mónica Castillejos-Aragón
Part II. Expanding Judicial Roles in Established Democracies
6. Courts enforcing political accountability
the role of criminal justice in Italy Carlo Guarnieri
7. The Dutch Hoge Raad
judicial roles played, lost, and not played Nick Huls
8. A consequential court
the US Supreme Court in the twentieth century Robert A. Kagan
9. Judicial constitution-making in a divided society - the Israeli case Amnon Reichman
10. Public interest litigation and the transformation of the Supreme Court of India Manoj Mate
11. The judicial dynamics of the French and European fundamental rights revolution Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser
12. Constitutional courts as bulwarks of secularism Ran Hirschl
Part III. Four 'Provocations'
13. Why the legal complex is integral to theories of consequential courts Terence C. Halliday
14. Judicial power
getting it and keeping it John Ferejohn
15. Out of phase
politics, regimes, and regime politics Mark A. Graber
16. The mighty problem continues Martin Shapiro
17. Conclusion
of judicial ships and winds of change Diana Kapiszewski, Gordon Silverstein and Robert A. Kagan.