University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

The legislative supremacy of Parliament, a dominant characteristic of the Westminster system of government, has for a long time been the basic norm of South African constitutional law. In line with the Westminster prototype, the South African judiciary did not have the power to review the substantive validity of legislation. The creation of a new order, based on a supreme Constitution which entrenches fundamental rights and gives the courts the power to review not on! y the procedural validity but also the substantive validity of legislation, has brought about a significant change. This thesis examines the role of the South African judiciary during the transition from a system of legislative supremacy to one of constitutional supremacy and judicial review. The thesis is based on the interim Constitution of 1993. The entrenchment of fundamental human rights in the Constitution implies a greater role for the judiciary. The judiciary has to apply and interpret the human rights provisions vigorously and fearlessly. The human rights provisions have to be applied and interpreted with a keen awareness that a system of constitutional supremacy differs materially from one of legislative supremacy. In a system of legislative supremacy the intention of the legislature is paramount; in a system of constitutional supremacy the Constitution is supreme and overrides all laws, including Acts of Parliament, which are in conflict with it The doctrine of legislative supremacy has in the past led to a literalist and mechanical application of law; this has had a negative impact on the constitutional role of the South African judiciary. The provisions of a Constitution, especially its human rights provisions, are framed in wide and open ended terms; these need to be elaborated before they can be applied; the nature of these provisions, their purpose and the larger objects of the Constitution are important. The interpretation of the provisions of a supreme Constitution is incompatible with a literalistic and mechanical approach. A purposive and liberal or generous approach is called for. A framework and approach to the interpretation and application of South Africa's Bill of Rights are suggested in the thesis. / Constitutional International and Indigenous Law / LL.D.

This study evaluates the court's approach towards the interpretation of administrative justice with specific reference to Roman v Williams 1997(2) SACR 754(C). Section 33 of the Constitution Act 108 of 1996 guarantees the right to administration justice. The elements of this right are lawfulness, reasonableness and procedurally fairness. Our courts are bound constitutionally to promote, develop, advance and protect the fundamental rights. This study provides the most effective approach towards the development of the fundamental right in our democratic society where the Bill of Rights binds legislature, executive and judiciary. / Administrative Law / LL.M. (Administrative Law)

Human powers of moral reasoning and motivation are fragile. How should citizens committed to the achievement of liberal justice respond to this fact? This dissertation theorises a class of moral requirements that are central to the practice of liberal democracy but have been recently overlooked by political philosophers: the fortificational duties, which enjoin citizens to design and submit to civic practices that improve both their moral reasoning and the motivational resilience of their sense of justice. It considers the proposition that a conception of justice is unjustified if unlikely to generate its own freely willed maintenance, or stability, in the face of human nature, and it argues that this proposition is false. If justice may face overwhelming resistance unless steps are taken to fortify ourselves against our own fallibility, the right response is to pursue precisely such fortification. Chapter One sketches the orienting ideal of the dissertation: an ideal of a social world in which citizens live together as free and equal. Chapter Two assesses the proposition that we ought to modify or abandon this ideal if we determine that it is unlikely to be freely realised without serious civic or institutional assistance—a move suggested by John Rawls’s “stability test”—and it argues that the candidate arguments for this conclusion fail. The chapter instead argues that citizens are subject to moral requirements to fortify their sense of justice by designing and submitting to measures that increase the likelihood that they will accurately identify and freely comply with their fundamental moral duties. These measures together constitute a liberal democracy’s “stability charter.” Chapters Three to Six explore proposed elements of citizens’ stability charter. Chapter Three discusses the fortification of moral reasoning through democratic deliberation. Chapter Four considers what institutional mechanisms could keep democracy oriented toward the achievement of justice despite human fallibility, and it defends a minimalist conception of judicial review as a case study. Chapter Five argues that the practice of criminal punishment is justified by the duties of wrongdoers to pursue additional fortificational measures in the aftermath of their moral powers’ defective operation. And Chapter Six focuses on the special problem posed to the enduring achievement of justice by “unreasonable citizens” who reject fundamental liberal values. The distinctive contribution of the dissertation lies, firstly, in its novel appropriation of the Rawlsian ideal of stability—reconceiving stability not as a justificatory condition set by reason on our convictions, but as a practical challenge that our own convictions set for us—and, secondly, in its deployment of that insight to motivate novel arguments about the character of democratic deliberation, the limits and role of judicial review, the proper purposes of criminal punishment, and the ideal method of engagement with unreasonable citizens.

The EU has for some time imposed sanctions against individiduals, i.e. targeted sanctions. These sanctions have had impacts on the listed individual in forms of limited procedural rights due to inter alia the limited disclosure of evidence. Improvements in the field were introduced by Kadi. Yet it remains difficult for the individual who wants to challenge a listing. The purpose of this essay is to examine how to obtain mechanisms for an effective judicial review in targeted sanctions cases when there is a non-disclosure of evidence to the EU Courts by the EU institutions. This essay will also discuss how the Courts standard of review could look like after Kadi. It will also address the need for an increased responsibility of the EU institutions, in the matter concerning the access to confidential information. This relates to questions regarding the transparency in the Union. This essay suggests that the mechanisms needed to acquire a higher intensity of review as well as an effective judicial review could be the use of closed material procedures and special advocates.

O papel desempenhado pelo Poder Judiciário nos mais diversos Estados passa por sensível evolução ao longo do século XX, à medida que se desenvolveram os sistemas de controle de constitucionalidade. De um lado, os atores políticos assumem especial importância nesse processo. Os modelos de revisão judicial foram reforçados, no mais das vezes, em paralelo à positivação, em âmbito constitucional, de um amplo rol de direitos fundamentais e de princípios balizadores e limitadores do poder estatal. Com isso, os elementos cotejados no processo legislativo de tomada de decisões políticas são revestidos de status constitucional e transportados para o discurso argumentativo do Direito, o que leva a um processo de judicialização da Política que permite que a atividade legiferante seja passível de confronto perante instâncias judiciárias. Os instrumentos de controle de constitucionalidade assumem, assim, novos contornos, permitindo que o Judiciário interfira no conteúdo das escolhas políticas feitas pela maioria governante. De outro lado, o Poder Judiciário particularmente as Cortes Constitucionais passa a assumir a corresponsabilidade na efetivação das metas e compromissos estatais, com o que desenvolve uma política institucional mais proativa e comprometida com a concretização substancial de valores democráticos, interferindo, assim, de maneira mais incisiva e rígida no controle do processo político. A definição de políticas fundamentais e o processo legiferante passam a contar com constante participação do Judiciário. Na realidade brasileira, a Constituição de 1988 amplia as competência do Supremo Tribunal Federal em sede de controle de constitucionalidade, inserindo o órgão de maneira efetiva nesse contexto de intervenção judicial na Política. A última década, por sua vez, marcou uma perceptível mudança em sua atividade e em sua interferência no processo de tomada de decisões políticas pelos demais Poderes. Valendo-se dos diversos instrumentos de controle que lhe são disponibilizados, assumiu o compromisso de participar na efetivação dos preceitos constitucionais pátrios mediante a revisão do conteúdo normativo decorrente das escolhas políticas tomadas em outras instâncias. Desse modo, tornou-se verdadeiro copartícipe do processo de definição de políticas legislativas nacionais, seja rechaçando normas que repute inconstitucionais, seja proferindo decisões com claros efeitos normativos que buscam readequar e conformar as escolhas dos atores políticos. Nesse processo decisório, entra em jogo a intensidade com que a Corte busca impor sua visão e suas concepções no tocante à efetivação e concretização dos compromissos constitucionais. A sobreposição de ponderações judiciais e legislativas acarreta, a seu turno, importantes efeitos sistêmicos ao diálogo interinstitucional que se desenvolve entre os Poderes, em especial no que concerne à distribuição das funções estatais dentro das premissas democráticas e ao dimensionamento do papel que compete a cada um dos Poderes no processo de efetivação e proteção da Constituição. / The role played by the Judiciary Branch in the several different States has undergone a sensible evolution throughout the 20th century to the extent that the judicial review systems develop. On the one side, the political actors assume special importance in this process. The models of judicial review have been reinforced, often times, in parallel with the enactment, in the constitutional level, of an ample list of fundamental rights and principles governing and limiting the state power. Therefore, the elements collated in the legislative process of taking political decisions are vested with constitutional status and transported to the argumentative discourse of Law, which leads to a process of judicialization of politics that allows the legislative activity to be subject to confrontation with judiciary instances. The instruments of judicial review assume, therefore, new contours allowing the Judiciary to interfere in the content of the political choices made by the governing majority. On the other side, the Judiciary Branch, and particularly the Constitutional Courts, begins to assume the co-responsibility in the effectiveness of the state goals and undertakings, resulting in the development of an institutional policy more proactive and committed to the substantial concretization of democratic values, thus interfering, in a more incisive and rigid manner, in the control of the political process. The definition of fundamental policies and the lawmaking process start to count with the participation of the Judiciary. In the Brazilian reality, the 1988 Constitution has enlarged the competence of the Brazilian Supreme Court in matters of judicial review, inserting this organ in an effective manner in the context of judicial intervention in politics. The last decade, in turn, has marked a perceptible change in its activity and in its interference in the process of decision-making political decisions by the remainder Branches of the State. By using the diverse instruments of control available to it, it has assumed the undertaking to participate in the effectiveness of the national constitutional principles by means of the review of the normative content arising from the political choices made in other instances. Therefore, it has become a true co-participant in the process of defining national legislative policy, be it by rejecting norms which it reputes unconstitutional, or by enacting decisions with clear normative effects that seek to realign and conform the choices of the political actors. In this decision-making process, comes into play the intensity with which the Court seeks to impose its view and its conceptions regarding the effectiveness and concretization of the constitutional undertakings. The overlap of judicial and legislative considerations triggers, in its turn, important systemic effects in the inter-institutions dialogue developing among the Branches, particularly with regard to the distribution of the state functions within the democratic premises and the dimension of the role played by each Branch in the effectiveness and protection of the Constitution.

As políticas públicas decorrem de escolhas a respeito de fins, meios e prioridades da ação estatal. O judiciário vem desempenhando papel cada vez mais destacado tanto no desenho como na implementação de políticas públicas. Sua participação ocorre, sobretudo, quando do controle judicial de atos administrativos e legislativos. Nessa oportunidade, fins e meios que haviam sido escolhidos pelos demais Poderes sujeitam-se à revisão judicial, dada a inafastável subordinação dessas escolhas ao ordenamento jurídico. Esse fenômeno, comumente denominado judicialização da política, introduz outro nível de escolha, além daquelas a respeito dos fins (o que?) e dos meios (como?): a escolha a respeito de quem deve fazer essas escolhas (quem?). Subjacente ao debate sobre os limites da revisão judicial das políticas públicas está, consciente ou inconscientemente, a busca por saber qual a instituição mais vocacionada a decidir sobres as variáveis fins e meios da forma mais aderente ao interesse público. O tema é enfrentado por uma vasta literatura, compilada segundo o tipo de abordagem: dogmática/deontológica, institucional/consequencialista, teoria política e crítica da capacidade institucional. O presente trabalho pretende contribuir para o debate introduzindo duas críticas. A primeira, relativa à tradicional abordagem dogmática/consequencialista, volta-se contra a crença disseminada nas escolas de direito e tribunais de que os fins e meios das políticas públicas estão previamente dados no ordenamento jurídico, bastando uma mais ou menos sofisticada técnica de interpretação para serem revelados. Sem dúvida, o discurso dogmático-jurídico, por sua racionalidade própria, contribui (de forma não exclusiva) para a construção coletiva do sentido da ação e dos fins do Estado. Todavia, a depender de qual instituição for encarregada de fazer, na prática, a escolha a respeito dos fins, meios e prioridades da ação estatal, haverá diferentes resultados. Em uma frase, a escolha de quem escolhe pode ser a escolha do que se escolhe. Por essa razão, ao lado do debate a respeito dos fins da ação estatal, deve o juiz ou o formulador de política pública levar em consideração também a análise institucional. Essa formulação não deixa de ser o objeto central dos trabalhos recolhidos sob a designação crítica da capacidade institucional, para os quais determinadas características institucionais do judiciário limitam sua capacidade de lidar com questões coletivas. Entretanto, os trabalhos dessa abordagem centram o foco apenas e tão somente nas falhas institucionais do processo adjudicatório, sem compará-las com as falhas e limitações das demais instituições, em especial o processo político (executivo e legislativo) e o processo de trocas (mercado). Contra essa abordagem monoinstitucional é que se volta a segunda crítica: sendo todas instituições imperfeitas, é imprescindível uma análise institucional comparada, que pondere as forças e fraquezas relativas de cada uma. A serviço do argumento, é apresentada a teoria da análise institucional comparada, de Neil K. Komesar (1994), e a metodologia de análise que propõe para a tarefa: o modelo centrado na participação. / This work aims at a contribution to the debate on the judicialization of politics, focusing on two critics to the current debate in the law field, in Brazil: (i) the traditional dogmatic/consequentialist approach to the issues concerned; and (ii) the institutional capacity critiques prevalent monoinstitutional analysis. Public policies results from decisions considering priorities and objectives of state action, as well as the available tools. The judiciary has increasingly been requested to play a prominent role in both the design and the implementation of public policies, especially for revising decisions taken by the Executive and the Legislative powers. As a result, the Judiciary has become the last instance to evaluate the appropriateness of the Executives and Legislatives decisions, a phenomenon named the judicialization of politics. The traditional debate on public policies focuses on the questions about the goals (what?) and the tools (how?) elected by the policy-maker. The phenomenon of the judicialization of politics introduces a new instance of decisions to the policy arena, claiming then for a new level of analysis in the law and public policy debate: who might decide? The proposal is favor the search for the institution best equipped to decide on the objectives and tools as aligned to the public interest. I have compiled the current debate on those topics in four categories, according to their approach: (i) dogmatic/deontological; (ii) institutional/consequentialist; (iii) political theory; and (iv) institutional capacity critique. The first critic I address in this work is to the traditional dogmatic/consequentialist approach. Widely spread in law schools and courts, such approach proclaims that the legal system itself has already defined all the goals and tools for public policies; therefore, to the judicial review remains the role of interpreting the law solely. This approach ignores that depending on who decides there may be different results. Alongside the debate about the purposes of state action either the judge or the policy-maker might take into account the institutional capacity. The institutional capacity critique approach contributes then with the assertion that institutional characteristics of the judicial system may limit its ability to deal with communitarian issues. My reading is that this institutional capacity analysis is however limited, as it centers exclusively in the institutional failures of the adjudicatory process. Such monoinstitucional analysis disregards the flaws and limitations of other institutions, particularly those comprehending the political process (executive and legislative) and the market. My critic to the institutional analysis critique is that any institution is imperfect; therefore it is essential to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each whenever a decision about who has to decide is to be taken. An important contribution in this comparative analysis, assumed by this work, is that of Neil K. Komesar (1994) on the centered participation model.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:46:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MARIA LUIZA SANTANA ASSUNCAO.pdf: 755817 bytes, checksum: 7f8b76ce6fc4029a0b4e7bed89261a2b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-20 / This paper conducted an exploratory study on the issue of judicial review of the contracts, using several authors, the law and jurisprudence to solve the social problem in the legal universe, based on the legal and economic theories on this theme. Using the methods dialectical and historical-comparative study addressed the evolution of jurisprudential understandings that underpin judicial decisions in this case, combined with the investigation of the phenomena that take place at the heart of society. It started from the assumption that the trials of the chores that involve issues relating to contracts should be based both on the disposal of the Civil Code on the subject, as in devices placed by the Consumer Protection Code, the dialogue occurring sources, under penalty of not achieving the desired social justice. The research carried out in the legislation, doctrine and jurisprudence, as well as practical reasoning and critical analysis on the subject concluded that the judiciary can and should analyze the judicial review in this case, aiming to contractual justice. / Esta dissertação realizou um estudo exploratório sobre a problemática da revisão judicial dos contratos, recorrendo a vários autores, à lei e à jurisprudência para a solução do problema no universo jurídico social, baseando-se nas várias teorias jurídicas e econômicas existentes sobre o tema. Utilizando os métodos dialético e histórico-comparativo, o estudo abordou a evolução dos entendimentos jurisprudenciais que embasam as decisões judiciais no caso concreto, cumulado com a investigação dos fenômenos que se processam no cerne da sociedade. Partiu-se do pressuposto de que os julgamentos das lides que envolvem questões relativas a contratos devem ser baseados tanto no que dispõe o Código Civil sobre o tema, quanto nos dispositivos apostos pelo Código de Defesa do Consumidor, ocorrendo o diálogo das fontes, sob pena de não se concretizar a justiça social almejada. A pesquisa realizada na legislação, doutrina e jurisprudência, bem como o raciocínio prático e análise crítica sobre o assunto permitiram concluir que o Poder Judiciário pode e deve analisar a revisão judicial no caso concreto, visando à justiça contratual.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:47:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ANDREA MACHADO REZENDE DE MORAES.pdf: 1004287 bytes, checksum: 77e648ca18952bc790630da7154e4381 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-04 / The incorporation of the protection of the right to health in constitutional texts is a contemporary expression of the desire of the society to see effected this fundamental right, which is why the Executive should adopt public policies to guarantee it to Brazilian citizens. Children and adolescents are deserving of priority treatment and differentiated, not only because of constitutional protection, but also on the condition of people in development. The establishment and execution of public policy priorities for this group are indispensable for the formation of the personality of these people, and therefore to perform in the future of free and equal citizens. The result of this interaction has led to the study of the possibility of judicial review of public policies related to health of children and adolescents. The focus of this ressearch is to examine the legality of the judicial role in the control of public policies related to health of children and adolescents, given the need to protect the fundamental right to development of the individual and the family as members of society. / A incorporação da proteção do direito à saúde em textos constitucionais é uma forma contemporânea de expressão do desejo de uma sociedade em ver efetivado esse direito fundamental, razão pela qual o Poder Executivo deve adotar políticas públicas a fim de garanti-la aos cidadãos brasileiros. A criança e o adolescente são merecedores de um tratamento prioritário e diferenciado, não apenas em razão da proteção constitucional, mas também diante da condição de pessoas em desenvolvimento. O estabelecimento e efetivação de políticas públicas prioritárias a esse grupo são indispensáveis para a formação da personalidade dessas pessoas e, consequentemente, para a realização, no futuro, de cidadãos livres e iguais. A resultante dessa interação tem levado ao estudo da possibilidade do controle judicial das políticas públicas relacionadas à saúde infantojuvenil. O foco dessa investigação consiste em analisar, diante da necessidade de proteção do direito fundamental ao desenvolvimento do indivíduo e da família como integrantes da sociedade, a legalidade da atuação judicial no controle de políticas públicas relacionadas à saúde infantojuvenil.