entrenchment
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The Tragedy of Lord Sumption
Thoughts on Lord Sumption’s views on the relationship between law and politics Continue reading
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The Fault Will Be Ours
Lord Sumption on politics, law, and the meaning and decline of democracy Continue reading
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What Do You Want?
A proposal for an expanded (and entrenched) statutory bill of rights is confused and misguided Continue reading
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Where Is the Grass Greener?
In a recent article in Constitutional Forum, Peter Russell argues that Canada needs to imitate New Zealand by creating a Cabinet Manual that would, notably, contain an authoritative although not legally binding statement of the principal constitutional conventions, especially those that regulate the formation of governments. While this would, in prof. Russell’s view, have a Continue reading
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Why Do the Write Thing?
Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler, both of them former legal academics and current barristers, Sir Geoffrey having also served as Attorney-General and Prime Minister in between, are about to publish a book advocating that New Zealand enact a “written” constitution. They have also set up a Twitter account and a website to both promote the book and Continue reading
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Entrenching and Expanding Rights
In an interesting post over at Concurring Opinions, Renee Lerner discusses the history of the constitutional protection for trial by jury, including in civil cases, in the United States, and suggests that this history holds a cautionary lesson. Prof. Lerner highlights the importance which the common law heritage and the purported “immemorial” “rights of Englishmen” associated with it had Continue reading
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Is It in the Constitution?
How much does an entrenched constitutional text have to do with, you know, the actual constitution? I have argued (here and here for example) that a text is, at best, a partial and incomplete statement if what a constitution really is. It is quite possible to have a constitution without an entrenched text. But even Continue reading
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Not So Super Majorities
We all want to live under good constitutions… whatever good really means. But how do we make sure that our constitution is, in fact, good? In a post at the Volokh Conspiracy (part of a series discussing their book on originalism), John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport argue that that “stringent supe[r]majority rules provide the best Continue reading
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A Little Knowledge
Twitter and the blogosphere (ok, the parts of Twitter and the blogosphere that I frequent) are pretty excited about the Constitute Project, which sets out to “offer[] access to the world’s constitutions that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics.” Google, which has provided money and support for the project, proclaims that Continue reading
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In the Trenches
Here’s the second part of my comment on C.J. Peters’ claim, in a recent and very interesting blog post, that constitutional law consists of “rules that are both entrenched and secondary.” I argued yesterday that constitutional rules often are primary rules (in H.L.A. Hart’s sense) or at least have a “double aspect” and are both secondary and primary Continue reading
Double Aspect 