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The Right Of Public Participation In The Law-Making Process And The Role Of The Legislature In The Promotion Of This Right, Karen Czapanskiy, Rashida Manjoo Dec 2008

The Right Of Public Participation In The Law-Making Process And The Role Of The Legislature In The Promotion Of This Right, Karen Czapanskiy, Rashida Manjoo

Karen Czapanskiy

In 2006, the South African Constitutional Court found a constitutional right to participate in the legislative process in the case of Doctors for Life, Case CCT 12/05 (decided 17 August 2006). In this article, we argue that, first, legislation is better when legislators are required to invite and attend to public input, and, second, citizenship is better when legislators are required to invite and attend to public input. Doctors for Life puts South Africa on the road to improving both legislation and citizenship. In the United States, this road is largely untraveled. While rejecting traditional representative democracy as an adequate …


Authorizing Subnational Constitutions In Transitional Federal States: South Africa, Democracy, And The Kwazulu- Natal Constitution, Jonathan Marshfield Dec 2007

Authorizing Subnational Constitutions In Transitional Federal States: South Africa, Democracy, And The Kwazulu- Natal Constitution, Jonathan Marshfield

Jonathan Marshfield

Not all federal systems permit their constituent units to adopt constitutions. This Article considers whether, and under what circumstances, subnational constitutions tend to contribute to the volatility or stability of their respective federal systems. By examining the role that subnational constitutions played in South Africa’s celebrated democratization, this Article observes that a transitional federal state can increase its flexibility and adaptability by merely authorizing subnational constitutions. The Article concludes that federal systems, particularly those undergoing fundamental change, can be better equipped to manage regime-threatening conflicts and perpetuate a democratic political culture if they permit constituent units to adopt constitutions.


Secrecy And Democratic Decisions, Mark A. Chinen Dec 2007

Secrecy And Democratic Decisions, Mark A. Chinen

Mark A. Chinen

Secrecy to protect intelligence sources and methods appears often in the nation’s discourse about controversial national security matters. Often it is asked whether such secrecy is consistent with the nation’s democratic principles and processes. I argue such principles and processes provide a framework through which we try to answer questions about secrecy and indeed legitimate them, but are often too broad to provide definitive guidance in specific cases. At the same time, the sources and methods argument itself is overbroad because of the nature of the sources and methods themselves; the tentative nature of intelligence assessments derived from those sources …


Gunneflo - Demokrati Och Lagprövning: Om Rättfärdigandet Av En Positiv Respektive Negativ Inställning Till Lagprövning [Democracy And Judicial Review: On The Justicfication Of A Positive And A Negative Attitude To Judicial Review In A Democracy], Markus Gunneflo Dec 2007

Gunneflo - Demokrati Och Lagprövning: Om Rättfärdigandet Av En Positiv Respektive Negativ Inställning Till Lagprövning [Democracy And Judicial Review: On The Justicfication Of A Positive And A Negative Attitude To Judicial Review In A Democracy], Markus Gunneflo

Markus Gunneflo

This article focuses on the justification of a positive and a negative attitude respectively towards judicial review in a democracy. The analysis is performed by analyzing texts by four American theorists theorists with different opinions on the subject: Robert Dahl, Jeremy Waldron, Erwin Chemerinsky and Ronald Dworkin. The study shows that there are significant disagreements concerning democratic values between those who take a positive and those who take a negative attitude to judicial review inter alia on the understanding of democracy in terms of process or substance, rule by the broad mass of the people or rule by an elite, …