Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Political Science, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 421 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 390-412). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 274-292).

This study focuses on the role of the South African judiciary under an entrenched and justiciable Bill of Rights. The lack of an established human rights culture in South Africa results in uncertainty regarding the permissible extent to which judges are empowered, under the Bill of Rights, to employ judicial activism and creativity in order to protect the fundamental rights of citizens. Judicial activism is used in the sense that judges can and should, whenever expressly or impliedly sanctioned to do so by the Bill of Rights, ensure that the fundamental rights of the individual are protected to the extent of granting actual constitutional relief, where this is justified, instead of merely declaring the existence of a right. The essential aim of this study is to outline the parameters of, and the legal basis upon which judicial activism can be justified and accepted into a South African human rights culture. / Jurisprudence / LL. M.

Standard explanations of judicial behaviour (i.e. legal, rational-choice, attitudinal, and institutional models) are overly static and exogenous, interested in instances of sudden change in judicial behaviour, as triggered by appointments, legal reforms, or shifts in the political context. While these models are useful in understanding the external incentives affecting judicial behaviour, they are unsuitable for explaining sustained judicial empowerment beyond temporary strategic calculations. In response, recent 'ideational' approaches, especially studying constitutional courts, highlight the importance of judges' ideas about their role - not their ideologies or policy preferences - in instilling a mission, rather than an incentive-oriented view of the judicial function. Yet, despite their more dynamic approaches, those methods have overlooked how ideational change in the 'outside' world translates into change 'inside' this type of courts. Due to those limitations, this study proposes a complementary explanation of judicial empowerment: a theory of informal mandates and endogenous empowerment. Viewed through this lens, change and variation in judicial empowerment within and across cases are explained by the construction, expansion, and endurance - or absence and collapse - of collective internal understandings of the court's role and mission. Such understandings are developed as legal doctrines and articulated under broader informal mandates by 'mission leaders'. Gradually, these informal mandates can expand and gather majority support from strategic partnerships formed between 'mission leaders' and 'supporting leaders' - usually justices with high seniority. The more these informal mandates expand and endure inside the court, the less exogenous factors and strategic incentives over-determine its behaviour in the long-run. Judicial empowerment, thus, is better understood as a process that develops and expands gradually, endogenously, and informally, with a mission-oriented purpose. The theory is applied in the constitutional tribunals of Costa Rica, Chile, and Uruguay from 1990 to 2016. These countries have similar rule-of-law conditions, but their constitutional tribunals differ considerably in the strength and endurance of their informal mandates and, as a result, have attained different levels of judicial empowerment.

Zugl.: Kiel, Universiẗat, Diss., 2006.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 543-579).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-117).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-325).