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Full-Text Articles in Law
Third Party Standing, Henry Paul Monaghan
Third Party Standing, Henry Paul Monaghan
Faculty Scholarship
Traditional constitutional theory posits a narrow conception of the issues that a litigant properly may assert. A litigant may invoke only his own constitutional rights or immunities; he may challenge a statute only in the terms in which it is applied to him; and, in the application process, courts have broad power to construe the relevant statutory language so as to avoid constitutional difficulties. The Yazoo case is perhaps the best known example of judicial adherence to these canons. There, a railroad claimed that a statute mandating speedy settlement of "all claims for lost or damaged freight" contravened the fourteenth …
Constitutional Law As Moral Philosophy, Gerard E. Lynch
Constitutional Law As Moral Philosophy, Gerard E. Lynch
Faculty Scholarship
The seemingly inexhaustible debate over the proper role of the Supreme Court in constitutional adjudication concerns an issue of enormous practical importance: whether the Court has or should have the power to overturn the decision of a democratically elected legislature to, say, prohibit abortions, affects not only the allocation of significant political power, but also the moral lives and indeed the very bodies of millions of citizens. For this reason, many contributions to that debate, from academics as well as from practicing politicians, have burned with the passion of political commitment, seeking to influence events directly by persuading judges (or …