Judges Commons^™

تقييم قانون التنظيم القضائي في ضوء المعايير الدوليّة, رينا قسطنطين

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

This study examines Lebanon’s Law on the Organization of the Judicial Court System, adopted by the Chamber of Deputies on July 31, 2025, and returned to the Chamber by the President of the Republic for further discussion, on September 5, 2025. It represents one of the most significant judicial reform initiatives since the Taif Agreement of 1989. The study traces the evolution of the Law’s provisions in successive drafts in light of the recommendations of the Venice Commission – the advisory body to the Council of Europe – and international standards regarding both institutional and individual judicial independence. The article …

The Venice Commission’S Impact Regarding The Fight With Democratic Backsliding And Rule Of Law Recovery: Reflections Of The Polish Example, Adam Bodnar

Human Rights Brief

The Article examines the role of the Venice Commission — the expert body affiliated with the Council of Europe — in addressing democratic backsliding and supporting the restoration of the rule of law, using Poland as a case study. It places the Venice Commission within the broader system of European constitutional governance and discusses its role when Poland moved, after 2015, towards the system of illiberal democracy. Opinions of the Venice Commission were significant in the evaluation of reforms affecting the Polish Constitutional Court, judicial independence, the prosecution service, and surveillance powers. They had impact on policies of the European …

Put Me In, Coach: Constitutional Concerns Of Judicial Activism And Legislating From The Bench, Jacob M. Elliott

Senior Honors Theses

Unrestrained judicial activism and legislating from the bench at the Supreme Court level place federalism and freedom in jeopardy. By ignoring crucial doctrines like jurisdiction, deference, and independence, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a tendency toward reinterpreting existing Constitutional precedent as they see fit, basing judgments on extra-legal influences, and supplanting Constitutional principles with their own personal policy preferences.

Numerous cases demonstrate the looming threat of judicial overreach; these cases are often considered some of the most damaging and injurious decisions in the history of the American federal judiciary. One potential solution is to appoint justices who will operate …

Popularity Contest: Is An Independent Judiciary Compatible With Popular Constitutionalism?, Lulu S. Faulk

Indiana Law Journal

Can the theory of popular constitutionalism—where the people have authority to shape constitutional law—exist alongside judicial independence? On the surface, these two ideas seem like contestants in a popularity contest: Popular constitutionalism embraces the will of the people in defining constitutional law, while judicial independence insists that judges disregard any and all external pressure in an effort to uphold the tenets of the Constitution even when they are unpopular. The contrast of these competing ideas is all the more evident with recent Supreme Court decisions such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, demonstrating a deviation from majority opinion in …

Judicial Discipline Through The Prism Of Public Law Values: A Critical Analysis Of Bill C-9, An Act To Reform The Judges Act, Richard Devlin, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Bill C-9 is the first legislative reform to the Judges Act in five decades. The goal of the legislation is to enhance public confidence in the administration of justice by modernizing the complaints and discipline system for federally appointed judges. In a previous essay published in Volume ?? of the Advocates’ Quarterly we offered a normative framework for assessment of a complaints and discipline system and identified seven key strengths of Bill C-9. In this sequel, we continue to apply this normative framework and argue that the legislation is marred by five significant weaknesses. We conclude that because the reforms …

Judicial Discipline Through The Prism Of Public Law Values: A Contextual Analysis Of Bill C-9, An Act To Reform The Judges Act, Richard Devlin, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Bill C-9 is the first significant legislative reform to the Judges Act in five decades. The goal of the legislation is to enhance public confidence in the administration of justice by modernizing the complaints and discipline regime for federally appointed judges. This essay is a contextual analysis of Bill C-9. The authors begin by outlining a conceptual framework which identifies eight public law goods that can guide an assessment of a complaints and discipline system. They then locate Bill C-9 in a historical context by identifying a crisis of legitimacy that had overtaken the Canadian Judicial Council by the early …

Depoliticizing The Supreme Court: How To Rein In Those Answerable To No One?, Dana Ortiz-Tulla ,Esq

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This Note will discuss some of the Commission’s findings and other interesting suggestions to determine whether it is possible to rein in the modern-day Court. Part I will explain the inherently political nature of the Supreme Court. Part II will briefly present how the Supreme Court acquired its power. Part III will discuss several prominent proposals for Supreme Court reform. Finally, Part IV will examine whether any recommendations may depoliticize the Court.

The Appearance Of Appearances, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

The Framers argued judicial independence was necessary to the success of the American democratic experiment. Independence required judges possess and act with integrity. One aspect of judicial integrity was impartiality. Impartial judging was believed crucial to public confidence that the decisions issued by American courts followed the rule of law. Public confidence in judicial decision making promoted faith and belief in an independent judiciary. The greater the belief in the independent judiciary, the greater the chance of continued success of the republic.

During the nineteenth century, state constitutions, courts, and legislatures slowly expanded the instances in which a judge was …

The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article enters into the modern debate between “consti- tutional departmentalists”—who contend that the executive and legislative branches share constitutional interpretive authority with the courts—and what are sometimes called “judicial supremacists.” After exploring the relevant history of political ideas, I join the modern minority of voices in the latter camp.

This is an intellectual history of two evolving political ideas—popular sovereignty and the separation of powers—which merged in the making of American judicial power, and I argue we can only understand the structural function of judicial review by bringing these ideas together into an integrated whole. Or, put another way, …

Packing And Unpacking State Courts, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

When it comes to court packing, questions of “should” and “can” are inextricably intertwined. The conventional wisdom has long been that federal court packing is something the President and Congress simply cannot do. Even though the Constitution’s text does not directly prohibit expanding or contracting the size of courts for political gain, many have argued that there is a longstanding norm against doing so, stemming from a commitment to judicial independence and separation of powers. And so (the argument goes), even though the political branches might otherwise be tempted to add or subtract seats to change the Court’s ideological makeup, …

Considering Reconsidering Judicial Independence, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In Reconsidering Judicial Independence, Professor Stephen Burbank revisits the nature of the relationship between judicial independence and judicial accountability—a relationship that he has elucidated over the course of an illustrious career. As Burbank emphasizes, the continuing success of this dichotomy depends on preserving a balance between its halves. But forces generations in the making have led to a new assault on the independence of the judiciary in the age of Trump, which has put the future of the independence–accountability balance in doubt. The age-old rule-of-law paradigm, which posits that independent judges put aside their personal biases and follow the law, …

The Death Of Judicial Independence In Turkey: A Lesson For Others, Edwin L. Felter Jr., Oyku Didem Aydin

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Taking Judicial Legitimacy Seriously, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Chief Justice Roberts appears worried about judicial legitimacy. In Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, he explicitly worries about the message the Court would send if it wades into the gerrymandering debate. More explicitly, he worries about “the status and integrity” of the Court if is seen as taking sides in politically charged controversies. Similarly, during his confirmation hearing, Roberts warned that the Court has a limited role in our constitutional scheme and must stay within it. To decide cases on the basis of policy and not law would compromise the Court’s legitimacy. This Essay is skeptical. For one, …

Tailored Judicial Selection, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

American states have experimented with different methods of judicial selection for two centuries, creating uniquely American models of selection, like judicial elections, rarely used throughout the rest of the world. But despite the wide range of selection methods in existence throughout the nation, neither the American people nor legal scholars have given much thought to tailoring the selection method to particular levels of the judiciary. To the contrary, the most common approach to judicial selection in the United States is what I call a unilocular, “a judge is a judge,” approach. For most of our nation’s history, all judges within …

Electing Our Judges And Judicial Independence: The Supreme Court's "Triple Whammy", Martin H. Belsky

ConLawNOW

In this article, Martin Belsky makes the case for judicial selection based on merit, as opposed to popular elections. Belsky cites Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company and the recent defeat of three Iowa supreme court justices because of their opinion in a controversial gay marriage case for the proposition that judicial elections can, and do, yield unjust results. Belsky asserts the need for judicial independence, but concludes that this goal is not achievable through elections because of the “triple whammy” of constitutional limitations: (1) the First Amendment protection of the right of judges and judicial candidates to give specific, …

Praise Defenders, Not Just Prosecutors, Stephen Henderson

Other Faculty Publications

In this letter to the editor, I discuss the problems when a district court judge becomes a graduate and class spokesperson for a Citizens' Police Academy.See article here.See letter here.

Why The Judicial Elections Debate Matters Less Than You Think: Retention As The Cornerstone Of Independence And Accountability, Layne S. Keele

Akron Law Review

This Article attempts to reframe the age-old judicial election arguments into a discussion about the importance of the retention decision, in order to draw out the areas of true disagreement in the judicial independence/judicial accountability debate. I argue that the core difficulties in balancing the desire for judicial independence with the desire for judicial accountability stem primarily from the judicial retention decision, regardless of whether retention is obtained by some form of reelection or through a form of reappointment. I then propose a two-term system for putting judges on state high courts, in which (1) high court judges sit for …

Inferiority Complex: Should State Courts Follow Lower Federal Court Precedent On The Meaning Of Federal Law?, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The conventional wisdom is that state courts need not follow lower federal court precedent when interpreting federal law. Upon closer inspection, however, the question of how state courts should treat lower federal court precedent is not so clear. Although most state courts now take the conventional approach, a few contend that they are obligated to follow the lower federal courts, and two federal courts of appeals have declared that their decisions are binding on state courts. The Constitution’s text and structure send mixed messages about the relationship between state and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court has never squarely …

Grand Challenges, Grand Ideas: Ideas For Surmounting The Biggest Challenges Facing The Judiciary And The Legal Profession Today, David F. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

In delivering the Lloyd D. George Lecture on the Judicial Process at UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law last year, Duke Law School Dean David F. Levi laid out “The Grand Challenges for the Legal Profession and the Judiciary.” Following are his lecture and a roundtable discussion among judicial leaders who are responding to the call for new ideas and solutions for these Grand Challenges.

Judicial Independence And Social Welfare, Michael D. Gilbert

Michigan Law Review

Judicial independence is a cornerstone of American constitutionalism. It empowers judges to check the other branches of government and resolve cases impartially and in accordance with law. Yet independence comes with a hazard. Precisely because they are independent, judges can ignore law and pursue private agendas. For two centuries, scholars have debated those ideas and the underlying tradeoff: independence versus accountability. They have achieved little consensus, in part because independence raises difficult antecedent questions. We cannot decide how independent to make a judge until we agree on what a judge is supposed to do. That depends on one’s views about …

Judges Under Fire - Alj Independence At Issue, Debra Cassens Moss

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Administrative Law: Working Together For Professionalization - Administrative Law Judges, The Judiciary, And The Community , Elizabeth B. Lacy

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Judicial Courage And Judicial Independence, Penny J. White

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Maintaining The Balance Between Judicial Independence And Judicial Accountability In Administrative Law, Edwin L. Felter Jr.

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Collegiality Among Administrative Law Judges - As Well As Independence - Would Be Lost If Judges Are Evaluated By Chief Judges On Policy Correctness, Richard L. Sippel

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Yoder - Hardwicke Dialogue: Does Mandatory Quality Assurance Oversight Of Alj Decisions Violate Alj Decisional Independence, Due Process Or Ex Parte Prohibitions?, Ronnie A. Yoder, John Hardwicke

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Administrative Law Judges: Premises, Means, And Ends, Ann Marshall Young

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Judicial Independence Under Siege, Wendell Fennell, Fred Young

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Public Perceptions Of Justice: Judicial Independence And Accountability , John L. Kane Jr

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

This Alj Said Too Much: Prison Hearing Officer Charges Michigan Department Of Corrections With First Amendment Violations And Race Discrimination, Carolyn Amadon

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.