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Full-Text Articles in Judges
The Place Of The Judiciary In The Constitutional Culture Of New Zealand, Matthew S. R. Palmer Qc
The Place Of The Judiciary In The Constitutional Culture Of New Zealand, Matthew S. R. Palmer Qc
The Hon Justice Matthew Palmer
New Zealand constitutional culture is dominated by the political branches of government: representative democracy and parliamentary sovereignty are perhaps the two most fundamental New Zealand constitutional norms. The judiciary has historically occupied an inferior, residual role with a relatively inaudible voice in constitutional dialogue. Against this context the paper explores the position of the judiciary in contemporary New Zealand constitutional culture. It concludes that it would take a striking judicial decision, consistent with public opinion, against government action, to invigorate popular support for the judicial branch of government. The normative prescription for the institutional health of the judicial branch is …
Courting Power, Anil Kalhan
The Coming Constitutional Yo-Yo? Elite Opinion, Polarization, And The Direction Of Judicial Decision Making, Mark A. Graber
The Coming Constitutional Yo-Yo? Elite Opinion, Polarization, And The Direction Of Judicial Decision Making, Mark A. Graber
Mark Graber
This Article offers a more sophisticated account of elite theory that incorporates the crucial insights underlying claims that Justices with life tenure will protect minority rights and claims that the Supreme Court follows the election returns. Put simply, the direction of judicial decision making at a given time reflects the views of the most affluent and highly educated members of the dominant national coalition. The values that animate the elite members of the dominant national coalition help explain the direction of judicial decision making for the last eighty years. During the mid-twentieth century, most Republican and Democratic elites held more …
The Limits Of Debate Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Gender Imbalance On The Bench, Keith Bybee
The Limits Of Debate Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Gender Imbalance On The Bench, Keith Bybee
Keith J. Bybee
What do we talk about when we talk about gender imbalance on the bench? The first thing we do is keep track of the number of female judges. Once the data has been gathered, we then argue about what the disparity between men and women in the judiciary means. These arguments about meaning are not freestanding. On the contrary, I claim that debates over gender imbalance occur within the context of a broader public debate over the nature of judicial decisionmaking. I argue that this public debate revolves around dueling conceptions of the judge as impartial arbiter and as politically …