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Constitutions In Crisis: A Comparative Approach To Judicial Reasoning And Separation Of Powers, Adam Shinar

Adam Shinar

In the ever growing literature on emergencies, writers mostly focus on normative questions. Yet the structural aspect, investigating the interactions between institutions, is often overlooked. This article seeks to add to the institutional discourse by looking at emergencies through an institutional lens, situating the resolution of legal questions within the separation of powers framework. By looking at judicial decisions in emergencies, I argue that most of them can be explained not according to constitutional considerations of substantive individual rights, but by the position the courts assume within the broader governmental framework. In a presidential system, such as the one in …