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No description available.

Since its creation in 1875, the Canadian Supreme Court has undergone several institutional transitions. These transitions have changed the role of the Court toward a more explicit and influential policy making role in the country. Despite this increasingly significant role, very limited attention has been given to the Court. With this perspective in mind, this study presents several analyses on the decision making process of the Canadian Supreme Court. At the institutional level, the study found that within the stable workload, the cases composition has shifted away from private law to public law cases. This shift is more significant when one concentrates on appeals involving constitutional and rights cases. The study found that this changing pattern of the Court's decision making was a result of the institutional changes shaping the Supreme Court. Statistically, the abolition of rights to appeal in civil cases in 1975 was found to be the most important source of the workload change.

If Supreme Court behavior is structured largely by the policy preferences of the justices, political scientists ought to consider the source of those preferences. Religion is one force that can strongly shape a judge’s worldview and therefore her votes. In this paper, I examine the effect of religion on U.S. Supreme Court votes in 11 issue areas plausibly connected to religious values. Catholic justices vote in ways that more closely adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church than non-Catholic justices even after controlling for ideology. These results may indicate that Catholic theology is different from Protestant or Jewish theology. It is also possible that on some issues there is not much of a theological difference, but religious values play a more prominent role in public life for Catholic justices. / text

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No description available.

The focus of this investigation is the relationship of the United States Supreme Court's functional performance to its environment. Three functions of courts are noted in the literature: conflict resolution, social control and administration. These functions are operationalized for the United States Supreme Court. Hypotheses are developed relative to the general performance of these three functions by all courts. Box-Jenkins time series analysis is then used to test these hypotheses in relation to the performance of the United States Supreme Court. The primary analysis rests upon a data set that includes all non-unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1986. A supplemental analysis is conducted using all formal decisions for the 1953 to 1986 period. The results suggest that intellectual resources, legal resources, modernization, and court discretion are significant influences on the functional performance of the United States Supreme Court. Future research must consider these influences in the development of a general theory of courts.

Tom Clark has fulfilled a dual role in the development of the American legal system: He has served as a moderating influence, often arbitrating the differences between opposing factions on the Court; and, he has served as a figure of caution and restraint upon the members of the Court, developing a judicial philosophy which is deferential to other units of government.

Depuis l'adoption de la nouvelle Constitution démocratique du Brésil en 1988, la Cour suprême joue un rôle de plus en plus significatif au sein du système politique brésilien. Constamment sollicitée pour contrôler la constitutionnalité des lois, le renforcement de ses attributions en matière de contentieux constitutionnel fait aujourd'hui de la Haute juridiction un organe législateur partiel participant, aux côtés du chef de l'État et du Congrès, à la formation de la volonté générale. Dans ce cadre, comme dans toutes les démocraties contemporaines comprenant un mécanisme de garantie juridictionnelle de la Constitution, le développement de la justice constitutionnelle au Brésil conduit à une remise en cause de la démocratie classique de type électorale fondée sur une confusion entre la volonté du peuple et celle des gouvernants élus. Partant du postulat que le fonctionnement démocratique s'inscrit désormais dans une perspective réflexive, cette thèse propose d'analyser, à travers l'étude de la jurisprudence de la Cour suprême, les changements opérés au sein du régime démocratique brésilien afin de savoir si les modifications qui en découlent ont entraîné un dépassement du modèle démocratique traditionnel ayant donné lieu à une démocratie dite « réflexive ». / Since the adoption of the new democratic Constitution of Brazil in 1998, the Supreme Court has played an increasingly significant role within the Brazilian political system. Constantly asked to review the constitutionality of laws, the further extension of its jurisdiction in constitutional law, currently renders the High court a partial legislative body involved, along with the Head of State and Congress, in the formation of general will. In this context, as in all contemporary democracies containing a mechanism of judicial review that guarantees the supremacy of the Constitution, the development of the constitutional justice of Brazil has led to a questioning of classical electoral democracy based on a confusion between the will of the people and that of electected officials. Based on the premise that the functioning of democracy must be understood as reflexive, this thesis proposes to analyze, through the study of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, the changes made within the Brazilian democratic system in order to determine if the modifications have resulted in an overtaking of the traditional democratic model that has given rise to a democracy called « reflexive ».

This comparative legal analysis evaluates the issue of terrorism and how it has been dealt with respectively by the United States and Israeli Supreme Courts. Since the events of 9/11, combating terrorism has become one of the primary concerns of the US government while it is a matter that has pervaded Israeli policy since its birth as a nation-state. The analysis is centered on examining how each state‘s Supreme Court has confronted the issue with the Israeli Supreme Court using a ―Business as Usual‖ model and the US taking an ―Emergency Powers‖ approach. It is argued that terrorism is an ongoing issue that cannot be justified as an emergency and the US Court would do better in adopting Israel‘s method of adjudication in these matters. It is also suggested that the US could learn from Israel‘s policy towards torture as the US policy has largely been cruel and unsuccessful.