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Series

Constitutional law

Journal Articles

2011

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

All Things In Proportion - American Rights Review And The Problem Of Balancing, Jud Mathews, Alec Stone Sweet Jan 2011

All Things In Proportion - American Rights Review And The Problem Of Balancing, Jud Mathews, Alec Stone Sweet

Journal Articles

This paper describes and evaluates the evolution of rights doctrines in the United States, focusing on the problem of balancing as a mode of rights adjudication. In the current Supreme Court, deep conflict over whether, when, and how courts balance is omnipresent. Elsewhere, we find that the world’s most powerful constitutional courts have embraced a stable, analytical procedure for balancing, known as proportionality. Today, proportionality analysis (PA) constitutes the defining doctrinal core of a transnational, rights-based constitutionalism. This Article critically examines alleged American exceptionalism, from the standpoint of comparative constitutional law and practice. Part II provides an overview of how …


The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett Jan 2011

The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This essay is a contribution to a symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s still-controversial decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision, it is suggested, should not be read as reflecting or requiring hostility or indifference towards claims for legislatively enacted accommodations of religion. Smith is not an endorsement of religion-blind neutrality in constitutional law; instead, it assigns to politically accountable actors the difficult, but crucially important, task of accommodating those whose religious exercise would otherwise be burdened by generally applicable laws. The essay goes on to suggest several things that must be true of our law …