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“The court and the public” argues that a judge’s awareness of public opinion is not only inevitable, but also necessary. Can the Court also influence the public? The long tenures of the justices do not seem to affect the equilibrium in which the Court and the public exist. Public polls show some approval for the Supreme Court in general, rather than its specific actions. However, famously contentious cases such as Roe v. Wade reveal the intersection of public opinion and Court judgment, showing what happens when the Court feels its legitimacy is threatened. Has the Court aligned itself with public opinion over time?

A very small percentage of cases reach the Supreme Court. “The Court at Work” explains that even if a case meets all the criteria, the justices are still at liberty to refuse it. The Court has navigated debates about the separation of powers and conflicting approaches to interpretations of the statutes. The growth of the administrative state means that the Court is now more often tasked with determining whether administrative agencies are carrying out their duties correctly. What do cases and controversies mean to the Supreme Court? Why are these terms important, and how have the Court’s interpretations of them changed over time?

This Article is the first to examine the behavior of judges and their law clerks (officially entitled référendaires) at the Court of Justice of the European Union. It identifies a number of serious issues affecting Court performance. First, the Article finds that the Court's high judicial salaries and lack of procedural safe-guards for EU judicial appointments attract political appointees. As a consequence, some judges who are selected are not compe-tent to perform their duties and are dominated by their référen-daires. Moreover, the high turnover rate of EU judges hampers their productivity and increases their dependence on the référen-daires. Using a sample of data hand-collected from LinkedIn, the Article demonstrates that référendaires are drawn from a rela-tively closed social network. There is no open platform for re-cruiting référendaires, and the requirement of French as the working language significantly limits the pool of eligible candi-dates. The inefficiency of the référendaire labor market results in less competition, leading many référendaires to stay longer at the Court. The revolving door between the Court and the European Commission raises serious conflict issues, as the Commission is able to exert influence on the Court from the inside and gain a comparative advantage in litigation. In addition, the Court’s practice of issuing a single, collegial decision encourages free-riding, increases pressures for judges and référendaires to con-form, and suppresses dissent, as illustrated in the Microsoft case. Last but not least, the division of labor between the General Court and the Court of Justice could lead to divergent incentives for judges working at different levels of the Court.

How does the Supreme Court choose among cases to grant cert? In the context of a model that considers a strategic Supreme Court, a continuum of rule-following lower courts, a set of cases available for revision, and a distribution of future lower court cases, we show that the Court grants cert to the case that will most significantly shape future lower court case outcomes in the direction that the Court prefers. That is, the Court grants cert to the case with maximum salience. If the Court is rather liberal (conservative) then the most salient case is the one that moves the discretionary range of the legal standard as far left (right) as possible. But if the Court is moderate, then the most salient case will be a function of the skewedness of the distribution of ideologies of the lower courts and the likelihood that future cases will fall within the part of the discretionary range that is adjusted if the case is granted cert. Variations take place when the ideology of the Court is moderately liberal, moderately conservative or fully moderate. Extensions of the model allow us to identify the sensitivity of the results to the number of petitions for revision; the variety of legal topics covered by the petitions; and anticipation of whether the Court will confirm or reverse.

Since 2013 judicial reforms in China have intensified. While recent studies of the Chinese judiciary have focused on structural reforms concerning the jurisdiction of courts and internal court management, it has largely gone unnoticed that the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has established an open-access database archiving the decisions of every court in China. On the basis of legal documents, secondary literature and interviews with experts, this study investigates the implications of the new database. We find that the database establishes new channels of communication that affect the relationship between the courts and the public, and the position of judges within the judiciary. Further, the open-access database facilitates changes in the structure of communication among legal experts, which in turn promotes legal professionalism. We argue that the SPC made use of the party policy on the direct accountability of the courts towards the people in order to pursue its institutional interest in a professional judiciary.

The article examines how states talk about the International Criminal Court (ICC, or the Court) through the lens of Albert Hirschman’s exit, voice and loyalty framework. Based on a content analysis...

InShergill & Others v. Khaira & Others[2014] UKSC 33, the UK courts considered whether a Sikh holy saint had the power to dismiss trustees who questioned his “succession” to the religious institution of theNirmal Kutia Johal. The Supreme Court, reversing the decision of the Court of Appeal that religious questions were “nonjusticiable,” reinstated the judgment at first instance of the High Court to the contrary. The decision of the Supreme Court is important because whenever questions of the identification and legitimacy of successors to a religious institution have arisen, their “justiciability” before a secular court has invariably been a bone of contention on grounds that it threatens the autonomy of religious institutions. InShergillthe Supreme Court got around these concerns by drawing a normative distinction between the public law of the land (which the courts are required to determine), and the internal private law of a religious institution on matters of succession, ordination, and removal (which are not in themselves for the courts to decide). ButShergillalso went further than previous case law in two respects. First, the fundamental tenets of a belief system are capable of an objective assessment by a secular court provided that there is public law element to a dispute, in which case the court can then decide on the fitness of the successor for office. This means there is no general presumption that a secular court is barred from considering religious questions per se. Second, these principles apply just as much to the judicial consideration of non-Christian faiths as they to the Christian religion, and this is so notwithstanding the court's unfamiliarity with other faiths.

The Czech Republic, as a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has vested the practice of state administration in the field of care for minor children to the authorities of social and legal protection of children (OSPOD). The purpose of such legal establishment is to provide complex care for minor children on the lowest administrative instance (according to the Act on Social and Legal Protection of Children). Territorial jurisdiction of OSPODs is determined by Act No. 359/1999 Coll., on the Social and Legal Protection of Children, and is therefore established according to the official permanent residence of each child. The real decision-making regarding the protection of the rights of minors is the responsibility of municipal courts. These courts appoint OSPODs as “collision representatives” who protect the interests of minor children in court proceedings. However, the territorial jurisdiction of these courts is determined by Act No. 292/2013 Coll., on Special Court Proceedings. According to this latter act, the court that is eligible to carry out proceedings is the general court of the minor, and in fact it is typically the court where the minor resides. The real place of residence and the place of official permanent residence are not always identical. The aim of this paper is to assess the complex legislation on the issue in theory, and to point out the practical impact and possible problems derived from the different territorial jurisdiction of OSPODs and courts. Additionally, qualitative research has been carried out, based on structured interviews. The respondents are nine municipal court judges who specialize in family law, and nine leading employees of OSPODs. The respondents in both groups are selected in matching pairs, so that their responses reflect the mutual positional relation of the judges in the territory of the court and the local OSPODs. On the theoretical level, the research concerns the evaluation of judicial scholarly writings and court decisions in the field and defines and identifies the problems derived from the different territorial jurisdiction of the bodies. In the interviews, all respondents said that they found the different jurisdictions highly problematic. The wider impact of the issue has also been assessed in terms of guaranteeing the participation of collision representatives in the decision making of courts regarding minor children.

Bush v. Gore was a straightforward and legally correct decision. For more than a quarter century, the Supreme Court has treated the stuffing of ballot boxes as a paradigmatic violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Much more subtle and indirect forms of vote dilution have also been outlawed. Like some of those practices, the selective and partial recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court may have been an inadvertent form of vote dilution. But that recount had effects that were virtually indistinguishable from those in the paradigmatic case. There is no meaningful difference between adding illegal votes to the count and selectively adding legal votes, which is what the Florida court was doing. The Supreme Court rightly concluded that the vote dilution in this case violated well-established equal protection principles. Nor did the Supreme Court err in its response to this constitutional violation. Although the Court acted with unprecedented dispatch after the Florida court's December 8, 2000 decision, it was highly improbable that a legally proper recount could be conducted by the December 18 deadline set by federal law. And it was quite impossible for such a recount to meet the December 12 deadline that the Florida court itself had found in Florida law. Contrary to a widespread misconception, the U.S. Supreme Court properly accepted the Florida court's interpretation of state law and provided that court with an opportunity to reconsider its own interpretation of state law. When the clock ran out, it was entirely due to mistakes and delays attributable to the Florida court. The Supreme Court's majority opinion has been subjected to a barrage of political criticisms of a kind that might more fittingly be directed against a Senate Majority Leader or a Secretary of State. Ironically, it is precisely because the Justices correctly applied the law that they have been accused of having partisan motives.

This chapter considers the actions commenced before the Court of Justice. These include actions by the European Commission and other member states against a member state (Articles 258–60 TFEU); judicial review of acts of the institutions (Article 263 TFEU); the action against the institutions for a failure to act (Article 265 TFEU); actions for damages (Articles 268 and 340 TFEU); and the right to plead the illegality of an EU regulation (Article 277 TFEU). The chapter also considers interim measures under Articles 278 and 279 TFEU and enforcement actions arising from the Commission enforcement of EU competition law against individuals.

The proposed international criminal section of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples Rights (the African Criminal Court) involves a number of progressive features. Among them is the Court’s authority to hear cases against corporations for a comprehensive list of international and transnational crimes. According to Article 46C of the African Criminal Court’s statute, entitled ‘Corporate Criminal Liability’, ‘the Court shall have jurisdiction over legal persons, with the exception of States.’ As no international criminal court has yet to exercise jurisdiction over corporations for international or transnational crimes, the African Criminal Court, should it come into operation, will necessarily tread new ground. This paper forensically examines the contours of Article 46C, with a view to elucidating its scope and to explore some of the challenges it raises.

McGuire et al. (2009) set out to develop a better measure of the policy content of the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions. They justify their measure using a formal model, which they test empirically. ...

The United States Supreme Court has significant influence over the development of legal policy, yet it must rely on external actors to bring to fruition the desired effect of its decisions. Among the most important such actors are state high courts who are often motivated to issue decisions promoting policies at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court and who have mechanisms to legitimize such decisions. This study builds on existing work on state court compliance with U.S. Supreme Court precedent by introducing a new theoretical framework that accounts for the impact of state-specific precedent vitality, or the degree to which the high court of a specific state has positively treated a U.S. Supreme Court precedent, on state high court compliance. Our analysis of state high court treatment of Miller v. California provides strong evidence for the importance of state-specific vitality as a determinant of state high court compliance.

The South African adversarial system of civil procedure in the High Court owes its origin to that of England. As with all civil procedural systems, the South African system is not stagnant. Its primary sources, namely Acts of Parliament and rules of court, are constantly amended in an attempt to meet the changing needs of society. Court delay and costinefficient procedural mechanisms, however, contribute to public dismay. The High Court, in the exercise of its inherent power to regulate its process, do so with the purpose of enhancing access to justice. The advantage of the system lies in the fact that it is not cast in stone but could, subject to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, be developed to make it more accessible to the public whilst protecting the public’s fundamental rights entrenched in the Constitution and, in this regard, particularly the right to afair trial embedded in sec. 34 of the Constitution. This contribution gives an overview of the system with reference to the court structure, the judiciary, the process in the High Court and its underlying principles, appeals, class actions and alternative civil dispute resolution mechanisms.

The Constitutional Court does not only interpreting the Constitution in judicial review cases. The Courtalso applies legal construction which include constitutional construction and statutory construction. Thisarticle aims to identify this approach in the Court rulings. It also seeks to find conditions that trigger theCourt to venture on discovering the law by applying legal construction.

It is rare for a national court to be invited to recognise and enforce a judgment from an international or regional court, as opposed to a judgment from a foreign national court. This article examines a decision of the High Court of Ghana given in respect of an application to enforce a judgment of the ECOWAS Court of Justice. The article examines the bases of the Ghanaian court's decision not to enforce the ECOWAS judgment and suggests how future cases may be decided.

The Supreme Court sometimes chooses to use its limited time to revisit earlier decisions. In doing so, the justices signal the importance of reasserting, correcting, or reconsidering their arguments. We find that the likelihood of the Supreme Court revisiting a case in a given year increases significantly as the number of circuit courts critical of that opinion increases. These results suggest that an acknowledgment of the important role of the circuit courts influences the decision to revisit cases. Even if the Court merely clarifies or reinforces earlier opinions, criticism in the circuits prompts the Court to take some action. Though the Supreme Court’s word is final, barring a constitutional amendment or legislative override in nonconstitutional cases, the mechanism of criticism in the circuits allows reconsideration of many issues already decided by the Court and sheds light on the importance of institutional structures to the maintenance of the rule of law.

The establishment of the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union has marked another attempt of theEAEU members to set up a regional integration court. Russian legal scholars have embarked theanalysis of the Court Statute and Rules of the EAU Court, including the comparison with the powersof the EurAsEC court which had operated for three years and the competence and organizational activityof the EU Court of Justice. However, some issues remain outside the scope of research in particular,the motives guided by the EAEU members approving the decision on establishing Court andassigning it with a particular jurisdiction which significantly differs from the EUCH powers and EAEUcourt competence. The author of the paper attempts to compensate the gap by examining the Statuteof the EAEU court on the one hand as the reflection of concern and doubts and concerns of themembers on the one hand as the reflection of fears, doubts of the members as to the court being established,and on the other hand as a group of measures to control the new court to avoid or minimizejudgments unwanted for them. The author concludes that seeking balance between independenceand efficiency of the EAEU court and control over the court have not been strategically justified. Thefears and doubts of the states drafting the statute of the Court leads to weakening features of thecourt, which will be instantly seen in the quality of the process of Eurasian integration. The existinglimitations in the court jurisdiction do not promote to the development of its authority and legitimacyeither for potential appellants which may seek protection of rights in other international or nationalcourts to challenge the EAEU courts in EUHRC, WTO court, investment arbitrations or constitutionalcourts of the EAEU members.

The literature on the U.S. Supreme Court has paid substantial attention to the perceived legitimacy of the Court’s decisions. However, much less attention has been paid to the perceived legitimacy of the reasons the Court provides for its opinions. We design two experiments to understand how the public perceives opinion content. Unlike prior studies, we take it as a given that the Court uses legal reasons in its decisions. This offers us a baseline by which to compare departures from these legal reasons. We find that extralegal reasons, when paired with legal reasons, do nothing to harm the legitimacy of the Court. Furthermore, we find that even with a lack of legal reasons, the use of extralegal reasons does not harm the legitimacy of the Court, even among those who find that these reasons are inappropriate for the Court to use.

The presence of women justices in the highest constitutional courts varies significantly across countries, yet there is little existing research that engages this substantial cross-national variation. Using an original data set of women’s representation in the constitutional courts in fifty democracies combined with qualitative case studies, we assess the effect of the selection mechanism on this variation and find that the existence of a “sheltered” versus “exposed” selection mechanism is a critical determinant of women’s presence. That is, when the selectors are sheltered from electoral accountability, they are less likely to select women as judges because they do not benefit from credit claiming. When the selectors are exposed and can claim credit, however, the unique traits and visibility of the highest court generate an incentive to appoint women.

Resumo Atualmente, o Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) ocupa hoje posição central no processo político nacional. Suas decisões são a última palavra oficial sobre os temas a que se referem, concentrando poderes para resolver conflitos políticos e morais, para além das esferas majoritárias. Esse cenário, porém, é muito diferente dos anos 1990, quando o STF não ocupava posição tão destacada na política brasileira. Neste artigo, discutiremos essa configuração do poder e do papel do STF por meio de análises do tribunal que a constituinte criou, mas também do que os ministros criaram por meio de práticas institucionais e interpretações de seus próprios poderes. Exploraremos algumas consequências mais recentes da manifestação do próprio poder conferido ao STF nesse processo de reconfiguração institucional, delineando, de maneira preliminar, novas tendências na forma de atuação política do tribunal. Argumentamos, também, que, em vez de atuar apenas como ponto de veto a decisões majoritárias, como câmara revisora do que faz o Congresso, o tribunal já sinalizou disposição para receber (e aceitar) provocações para funcionar como uma espécie de primeira câmara legislativa. Abstract The Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) occupies a central role in the national political process. The court´s decisions have been the last official word on many key constitutional controversies, and it has increasingly asserted its own powers to solve political and moral conflicts, even against majoritarian decisions. This scenario, however, is very different from the 90s, when the court was much less relevant in national politics. In this paper, we engage with and try to map this process of institutional transformation by analyzing and contrasting the court that the constitution created in its original text, and the court that the Justices themselves have recreated, by means of institutional practices and constitutional interpretation of their own powers. We will explore some of the implications of the institutional transformations driven by the court itself, by identifying a set of new trends in the ways by which the court participates in the national political process. The paper concludes by arguing that, instead of acting just as a veto point to majoritarian decisions (that is, as a third legislative chamber), the court has been signaling its willingness to accept (and to rule on) cases in which it will be forced to act as a first legislative chamber.

Specialized courts have been a panacea of legal reform in Europe in the last ten to twenty years. Few studies have studied their performance and alleged advantages. This paper considers a particularly interesting example. It explores possible variations in terms of constitutional review across Brazilian state supreme courts. We focus on possible differences between decisions made by a non-specialized court en banc or by a specialized court panel (órgão especial), the latter being frequent in the larger states. An original dataset was constructed by the authors to empirically explore this question. The dataset considered 630 cases of abstract review judged between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2010, across twenty-five state supreme courts of the Brazilian federation. The main purpose of our inquiry is to determine whether or not there are significant variations in the outcome of the cases of abstract review as a function of a specialized panel. We find some evidence that the existence of specialized panels matters for the likelihood and rates of dissent as well as duration of procedures, but not for other variables. Implications for legal reform are also discussed.

Ohio Rule of Juvenile Procedure 2(Y) allows juvenile courts to do what other courts cannot: designate additional parties to an action, allowing juvenile courts to better accomplish their statutory purpose of pursuing the best interests of children. However, sometimes this can lead to confusion about juvenile courts’ actions to protect children, especially when courts invoke Rule 2(Y) to stop interference with proceedings. This article will examine the historical foundations of Ohio's juvenile courts, the unique authority that they possess, and the conflicts that can arise due to interference with juvenile court proceedings. Ohio's juvenile courts have unique authority, and they can use that authority in a way that does not conflict with constitutional rights, while still working to protect the interests of children.

International standards of the right for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion as well as the corresponding case law of the European Court of Human Rights have not been sufficiently studied in the Ukrainian science of international public law. Contemporary researchers should have a clear understanding of what exactly comprises the catalog of international standards of this right, and how such standards are interpreted by the European Court. The Court in its 2014 decision S. A. S. v. France drew such a catalogue in a unique way. It is therefore important to analyze it for understanding and implementing this right. The understanding of standards of the right for the freedom of conscience and religion is not static. It is constantly developed by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The Court’s decision S. A. S. v. France is one of the most recent and, perhaps, most controversial decisions on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in which the Court drew a catalogue of such standards and gave its interpretation. The analysis of the most recent case law of the Court determines the actuality of this study. The purpose of the article is to make an analysis of the main standards of the right for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion in their interpretation by the European Court in its 2014 decision S. A. S. v. France. The article analyzes nine key standards of the right for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion as outlined in S. A. S. v. France decision. These are the principles that the Court examines each time while considering applications for violations of Article 9. From a researcher’s point of view S. A. S. v. France decision is both interesting and helpful, because here the Court dedicated a special section to the key principles which it had drawn in its previous case law. The difficulty and a controversial character of the decision prompted the Court to make a compilation of its former case law in order to justify its position. This make the decision extremely helpful to the researcher because it became a certain general commentary created by the Court, and which will be referred to as to the main list of rules and principles used by the Court in many years to come.

IN federal court, subject-matter jurisdiction is a magic bullet. Jurisdictional problems are particularly pernicious (to the verdict winner) or useful (to the verdict loser) because they can never be waived, the court must address any potential jurisdictional defect it notices, and an incurable jurisdictional defect requires the judgment to be thrown out. We review some common defects in federal subject-matter jurisdiction and potential ways to fix them. (1) I. Why Defects In Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Can Destroy Your Victory (Or Save You From Defeat) "Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction [,]" possessing "only that power authorized by Constitution and statute...." (2) At every stage of litigation, a federal court is required to confirm that it has jurisdiction, and to dismiss the claim if it lacks jurisdiction. (3) A court generally may not rule on the merits of a case without first determining that it has subject-matter jurisdiction. (4) If it appears that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, it must dismiss the action. (5) This rule holds even after final judgment has been entered and an appeal filed. A federal appellate court is required to evaluate both its own jurisdiction and that of the district court. If the district court lacked jurisdiction, the appellate court must vacate the judgment: [E]very federal appellate court has a special obligation to satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review, even though the parties are prepared to concede it. And if the record discloses that the lower court was without jurisdiction this court will notice the defect, although the parties make no contention concerning it. When the lower federal court lacks jurisdiction, we have jurisdiction on appeal, not of the merits but merely for the purpose of correcting the error of the lower court in entertaining the suit. (6) "A litigant generally may raise a court's lack of subject-matter jurisdiction at any time in the same civil action, even initially at the highest appellate instance." (7) Even if a jurisdictional defect is first discovered after trial or after judgment has been entered, it requires the case to be dismissed. (8) Jurisdiction cannot be created by consent or estoppel, or by '"the parties' litigation conduct.'" (9) Even a party that initially brought the case to federal court can attack jurisdiction. (10) Federal district courts and courts of appeals take these requirements seriously. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(4) requires appellants to explain why the district court and court of appeals have subject-matter jurisdiction. Many district courts and courts of appeals instruct their staff to confirm the court's subject-matter jurisdiction at the inception of a case. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a district court or court of appeals to issue a sua sponte order requiring the parties to explain why there is subject-matter jurisdiction, even when no one disputes it. Meticulous attention to the jurisdictional requirements is therefore critical. We outline some common pitfalls in pleading and establishing both diversity and federal subject-matter jurisdiction, and describe some ways to fix them. II. Diversity Jurisdiction A. Background Article III of the U.S. Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to, inter alia, controversies "between citizens of different states" and "between a state, or citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects." (11) Pursuant to this provision, the diversity statute, 28 U.S.C. [sections] 1332, grants federal courts jurisdiction over suits in which the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 and the dispute is between (a) citizens of different states, (b) citizens of a state and citizens or subjects of a foreign country (excluding lawful permanent residents domiciled in the same state), (c) citizens of different states in which citizens or subjects of foreign countries are additional parties, or (d) a foreign state as plaintiff and citizens of a state or of different states. …

Fundamental changes in the 1945 is the amendment of Article 1 paragraph (2) as follows: "Sovereignty belongs to the people and carried out according to the Constitution". Change the 1945 Constitution has given rise to the Constitutional Court. By the Constitutional Court, the constitution guaranteed as the supreme law that can be enforced as it should. The Constitutional Court in its development, it is feared will be the agency that has authority super body.Particularly in resolving the matter related to its authority, the Constitutional Court can unilaterally interpret the Constitution without being questioned, other than that produced the Constitutional Court ruling is final and binding, so that when there is one party who feels aggrieved by the decision of the Constitutional Court cannot make the effort for other law. From the approach used in this study is normative juridical, because the study was conducted by examining library materials or secondary data relating to the status and authority of the Constitutional Court in constitutional legal system of Indonesia. Specifications of this research is descriptive analysis, which is expected to give a detailed overview, systematic, and comprehensive on all matters relating to the object to be examined. The data used in this study is secondary data, it means the data obtained from library materials collected through the study of literature and documentary studies, which are then analyzed qualitatively. The conclusion of this study is that the formation of the Constitutional Court in Indonesia is inseparable from the development of judicial review occurring in several countries in the world, especially during the implementation of judicial review which was pioneered by John Marshall in Marbury versus Madison case.Thinking about the importance of the Constitutional Court in Indonesia has emerged during the discussion of the draft Constitution in BPUPKI, then the idea of judicial review of the need to re-emerge during the discussion draft Judicial Power Act (Act No. 14 of 1970). At the time of the discussion of the 1945 changes in the era reformation, the opinion of the importance of the Constitutional Court appeared. Ultimately, the Third Amendment to the 1945 to be of the Constitutional Court, which serves as the guardian of the Constitution and constitutional interpretation. Keywords : Constitutional Court, The Status and Authority in the Constitution

Although not always headline grabbing, the Roberts Court has been highly interested in civil procedure. According to critics, the Court has undercut access to justice and private enforcement through its decisions on pleading, class actions, summary judgment, arbitration, standing, personal jurisdiction, and international law.While I have much sympathy for the Court’s critics, the current discourse too often ignores the states. Rather than bemoaning the Roberts Court’s decisions to limit court access—and despairing further developments in the age of Trump—we instead might productively focus on the options open to state courts and public enforcement. Many of the aforementioned decisions are not binding on state courts, and many states have declined to follow their reasoning. This Article documents state courts deviating from Twombly and Iqbal on pleading; the Celotex trilogy on summary judgment; Wal-Mart v. Dukes on class actions; and Supreme Court decisions on standing and international law. Similarly, many of the Court’s highly criticized procedural decisions do not apply to public enforcement, and many public suits have proceeded where private litigation would have failed. This Article documents successful state-enforcement actions when class actions could not be certified, when individual claims would be sent to arbitration, and when private plaintiffs would lack Article III standing.In sum, this Article evaluates state court and state-enforcement responses to the Roberts Court’s procedural decisions, and it suggests further interventions by state courts and public enforcers that could offset the regression in federal court access. At the same time, this analysis also illuminates serious challenges for those efforts, and it offers reasons to be cautious about state procedure and enforcement. Leveling down to state actors may not completely escape the political forces that have shaped federal procedure, and it may exacerbate some of the political economies that have undermined private enforcement and private rights to date.

Like everything else in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment originally restrained only the new federal government. This left the states free to regulate weapons as they saw fit, just as they were free to regulate such matters as speech and religion. The Supreme Court did not invalidate a federal statute under the Second Amendment until 2008, and it was only in 2010 that a regulation adopted pursuant to state law was struck down. These two decisions — District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago — prompted a stream of litigation that may eventually put significant constraints on legislative efforts to regulate the possession and use of weapons. As this is written in July 2017, however, it seems more likely that the Court’s decisions will prove to have very limited practical effects. It is worth recalling the Rehnquist Court’s Commerce Clause decision in United States v. Lopez, which set off celebrations and lamentations about a federalism revolution that has yet to come about. Similarly, the Roberts Court has so far shown only that the Second Amendment does not leave governments with absolutely limitless regulatory power. This contribution to American Federalism and Public Policy (edited by Christopher P. Banks) begins with a brief sketch of the legal and historical background that set the stage for Heller and McDonald. After a description of those cases, the chapter surveys the application of the decisions by the lower courts. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the Supreme Court’s response to the case law developed by the lower courts.

The influence of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions depends critically on how these opinions are received and treated by lower courts, which decide the vast majority of legal disputes. We argue that the retirement of justices on the Supreme Court serves as a simple heuristic device for lower court judges in deciding how much deference to show to Supreme Court precedent. Using a unique data set of the treatment of all Supreme Court majority opinions in the courts of appeals from 1953 to 2012, we find that negative treatments of Supreme Court opinions increase, and positive treatments decrease, as the justices who supported a decision retire from the Court. Importantly, this effect exists over and above the impact of retirements on the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court.

On 27 June 2014 the African Union (au) Assembly adopted a protocol entitled ‘Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights’. This Protocol contains an annex entitled ‘Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights’. The Protocol and the Statute annexed to it provide for the establishment of a regional court in Africa to be known as the ‘African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights’ (African Court). This Court will, among others, exercise criminal jurisdiction over a wide range of international crimes involving individual criminal responsibility and corporate criminal liability over legal persons (with the exception of States), which goes beyond any other international court or hybrid tribunal. This article considers reasons for establishing a regional court in Africa with criminal jurisdiction and examines the likely effectiveness of the African Court focussing on the wide jurisdiction conferred on the Court; the impact of immunity from criminal prosecution granted to serving au heads of State and other undefined ‘senior State officials’; and the need to strengthen national criminal jurisdictions to enable them to prosecute international crimes in Africa.

1. Our sixth annual round-up of the ten most interesting public law judgments delivered by the Supreme Court, in the legal year 2014–2015, has been more difficult this year than some of the recent ...

The article sheds light on provisions of Codes of Civil Procedure of 1853 and 1860 concerning ordinary legal remedies. As this matter was codified for the first time, a necessity of amending and supplementing some provisions soon emerged. Those amendments and supplements, along with original provisions were examined in this paper. The author also deals with regulations on jurisdiction of Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation and Supreme court. Types and categories of ordinary legal remedies were scrutinized, as well as strict time limits within one should lodge an appeal and proper grounds for making an appeal. The author also responds to questions under which circumstances are ordinary legal remedies allowed, and what types of decisions a higher court can make after reviewing the correctness and reasonableness of a decision issued by a lower court. Shortly after enactment of the Code of 1853 it appeared that judicial procedure is too complicated, expensive and ineffective due to too many legal remedies and legal jurisdictions. That is the reason why the Supreme court as the highest court within the hierarchy of legal jurisdictions and as final court of appeal was abolished in 1860, when new Code of Civil Procedure had been passed. New codification envisaged Court of Appeal as second instance court and, at the same time, court of last resort. Regarding legal remedies, Code of 1860 introduced appeal as sole ordinary legal remedy.

Twenty-five years ago, in this Journal, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, and Shelley Wright argued that the structures of international law “privilege men.” As shown in Table 1, which summarizes data from a forthcoming article, on nine of twelve international courts of varied size, subject-matter jurisdiction, and global and regional membership, women made up 20 percent or less of the bench in mid 2015. On many of these courts, the percentage of women on the bench has stayed constant, vacillated, or even declined over time. Women made up a lower percentage of the bench in mid 2015 than in previous years on two-thirds of the courts surveyed.

The article analyses the changes of jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union after the coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon to give preliminary rulings in the proceedings launched where a national court submits a reference for preliminary ruling when considering a criminal matter as well as on a request from a national court to interpret a legal act of the European Union or deliver an opinion on its validity. In addition, it investigates the preliminary ruling, the requirements to fulfil when presenting procedural documents, and conditions of applying special measures in organizing the proceedings. The analysis of the relevant case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union will also help to reflect the potential trends of its future development. On the basis of the analysis of the case-law of the Court of Justice, the following conclusion is made: after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and expiry of the transitional period, no restrictions have been left for national courts (irrespective of their position in the national legislative system) to submit a reference for a preliminary ruling before the Court of Justice of the European Union where preliminary questions are related to the area of freedom, security and justice, therefore, the following trend arises: national courts more often decide to use this opportunity of cooperation with the Court also when a criminal case is pending before a national court. In the process of a preliminary ruling the role of a national court is very important, as it, requesting for a preliminary ruling, not only initiates the opening of the process, but also the quality of procedural documents submitted by a referring court may determine the progress, duration and result of the proceedings. Therefore, the requirements and stipulations laid down accordingly in Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and Recommendations to national courts in relation to the initiation of preliminary ruling proceedings are very important. An active use of national courts of a possibility to submit a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice in cases where there are doubts as regards interpretation of the European Union legal acts in considering criminal cases and the preliminary rulings of the Court of Justice contributes to the attaining of one of the main objectives laid down in Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: to ensure uniform interpretation and application of the European Union law throughout the Union.

The Constitutional Courts of a number of Member States exert a constitutional review on the obligation of national courts of last instance to make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).Pursuant to Article 267(3) TFEU, national courts of last instance, namely courts or tribunals against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, are required to refer to the CJEU for a preliminary question related to the interpretation of the Treaties or the validity and interpretation of acts of European Union (EU) institutions. The CJEU specified the exceptions to this obligation inCILFIT. Indeed, national courts of last instance have a crucial role according to the devolution to national judges of the task of ensuring, in collaboration with the CJEU, the full application of EU law in all Member States and the judicial protection of individuals’ rights under EU law. With preliminary references as the keystone of the EU judicial system, the cooperation of national judges with the CJEU forms part of the EU constitutional structure in accordance with Article 19(1) TEU.

This study investigates the politics of appointments to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the court established under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to review secret federal government requests for warrants related to national security investigations. Since the FISA Court's creation, its members have been appointed entirely at the discretion of the Chief Justice of the United States, who selects FISA Court judges from among the pool of existing U.S. District Court judges. Using data on the common space scores of the federal district judges appointed to the court, and the limited information available on the court's decisions, we explore the implications of this, both for the ideological makeup of the FISA Court's judges and for the oversight function they perform. The results suggest that the court has become decidedly more conservative in recent years, far more so than the district courts overall, with potentially serious implications for its abilit...

The Supreme Court dominates America’s legal establishment. Predicting its decisions has, arguably, and for all practicality, become an industry. The traditions of the court have endowed it with a teleological approach which makes predicting the court’s decisions difficult. On important decisions, especially those with political overtones, the Justices on the court show a strong preference to vote along partisan lines, in harmony with the party that nominated them onto the court - but not always. In a review of the court’s history, in key decisions Justices have departed from their more predictable partisanship. Our analysis shows that when judges depart from their predictable partisanship, they do so for fairly consistent, if not predictable, reasons: institution building. This paper argues that the Supreme Court behaves in a manner consistent with Max Weber"s social theory: that a bureaucracy will labor to perpetuate itself. The Supreme Court often makes decisions for the purpose of enhancing and perpetuating the institution of the Court itself. Because the Supreme Court is a national institution, at times “institution building” means nation building. This paper studies the tension of partisanship versus institution building in Supreme Court decisions: the dynamics of fission versus fusion, the tension that exist between these two poles and the mechanics of how this is worked out, creates arguably some of the greatest drama in the Court’s history as demonstrated in Marbury v. Madison and Bush v. Gore.

At a joint press conference in April of 2012, a reporter asked President Barack Obama to speculate on how the Supreme Court might rule concerning the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Ultimately, the president said, "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." (1) Whether or not this statement shaped the Court's decision in June to uphold the Act; the president's rhetoric fueled a debate in the popular media about the appropriateness of the president attempting to influence the Court by going public in this manner (e.g., Editorial Board 2012; Hartman 2012). This is so even though the president mentioned National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) on only two occasions prior to the Court's decision. The bulk of the president s attention to this case occurred after the decision, in dozens of stump speeches delivered during the 2012 presidential election campaign. These remarks are not the only high-profile instance of presidents targeting Supreme Court cases in their public rhetoric. President Obama famously raised concerns about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) during his 2010 State of the Union Address and called on Congress to counteract Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Court's decision to invalidate the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. George W. Bush publicized his opposition to affirmative action prior to the Court's decisions in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). (2) Even 50 years ago, President Johnson praised the Court's decisions in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) as he encouraged Congress to pass more expansive civil rights legislation. (3) Despite these examples of presidential speeches referencing Supreme Court cases, we lack a firm understanding of when, how frequently, and why presidents mention Supreme Court cases in their public statements. To date, most going public research that examines the interrelationships between the executive and judicial branches of government focuses on judicial nominations, not Supreme Court cases (Cameron and Park 2011; Holmes 2007, 2008; Johnson and Roberts 2004; Krutz, Fleisher, and Bond 1998; Maltese 1995a). In addition, only limited research shows that presidents increase their public attention to policy issues in response to Supreme Court cases on those issues (Flemming, Wood, and Bohte 1999; see Ura 2014). Moreover, despite the firestorm surrounding President Obama's comments delivered before the Court's ruling in the Sebelius case, we know next to nothing about how frequently presidents speak on pending decisions or whether they focus their public attention on decided cases. We remedy this state of affairs by investigating the frequency of both written and spoken comments on historic and recently decided Supreme Court decisions. To do this, we have cataloged the number of times per month that presidents mention Supreme Court cases in public comments from the Eisenhower to Obama administrations (1953-2012). We use these data to explore two significant topics. First, we analyze the timing of presidential references to Supreme Court cases to determine whether presidents mention cases pending before the Court or discuss cases after they have been decided. Because we find that presidents speak almost exclusively about Supreme Court cases after they have been decided, our primary research question asks: what explains the frequency of the president's monthly public commentary on decided Supreme Court cases? To answer this question, we build upon research that explains the number of presidential speeches over time (Eshbaugh-Soha 2010; Hager and Sullivan 1994; Kernell 1997; Powell 1999; Ragsdale 1984), which concludes, to varying degrees, that presidents speak publicly to bolster their reelection, historical legacies, and policy goals. …

In the very first decision reported in the Commonwealth Law Reports, Griffith CJ, Barton and O'Connor JJ mooted whether an appeal lay to the Court from a judgment given after the coming into force of the Constitution but before the coming into force of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth). The Constitution, from 1 January 1901, vested the judicial power of the Commonwealth in the High Court and made provision for the appellate and other jurisdiction of the Court. But only the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), from 25 August 1903, 'actually constituted' the apparatus and the machinery of the Court; the appellate jurisdiction 'could not, of course, be exercised' before then. The question presented, 'one of difficulty and importance', ultimately did not need to be resolved because leave to appeal would be refused on other grounds in any event.3 Nonetheless, the Court articulated the reasons that supported each of the competing views of the operation of ss 71 and 73 of the Constitution. There was said to be much force in the contention that the jurisdiction of [the lower courts] was, from the first, intended to be subject to the right of appeal to the High Court, and that that right, being a right conferred by the Constitution itself upon suitors, could not be lost or taken away by mere inaction of the Parliament.