This research examines the relationship between courts and legislatures in a comparative perspective. Specifically, I examine how 1) the ideological composition of the bench; 2) the propensity of court involvement in a given policy area; 3) the disposition of court decisions in a given policy area; and 4) judicial institutional rules shape judicial-legislative relations and subsequently influence bill introductions and policy enactments by state legislatures. By examining HMO regulation and education policy in the American states during the 1990s, I find evidence that judicial influence does impact legislative policymaking, in both introduction and enactment stage, across both policy areas. Education policy demonstrates a stronger judicial impact than HMO regulation. While traditional scholarship has depicted the judicial branch as having minimal impact on policy formation, and subsequently social change, the findings of this study suggest that we have overlooked an important policymaking role of the judicial branch. Furthermore, state policy research has not given adequate attention to judicial influence as an explanation for policy formation in the American states.

1990 m. kovo 11 d. buvo atkurta nepriklausoma Lietuvos valstybė. Šis įvykis atvėrė naują Lietuvos konstitucinės raidos etapą. 1992 m.spalio 25 d. įvykusiame referendume Lietuvos Respublikos piliečiai pritarė LR Konstitucijai1, kuri įtvirtina Lietuvos nepriklausomybę ir demokratiją bei išreiškia tautos suverenitetą. Atkūrus nepriklausomybę, Lietuva tapo pripažinta dalyve tarptautiniuose santykiuose. Bendradarbiavimas tarp Lietuvos ir Europos Bendrijos prasidėjo 1991 m. 1992 m. gegužės 11 d. Lietuva ir Europos Bendrija pasirašė prekybos ir komercinio bei ekonominio bendradarbiavimo sutartį2, o vėliau priėmė deklaraciją dėl politinio dialogo tarp Bendrijos ir Lietuvos Respublikos. 1993 m. birželio 21-22 d. vykusiame Europos Vadovų Tarybos susitikime Kopenhagoje Bendrija pirmą kartą suformulavo savo poziciją dėl Vidurio ir Rytų Europos valstybių narystės Europos Sąjungoje ir nustatė kriterijus jų dalyvavimui šioje Bendrijoje. 1994 m. liepos 18 d. buvo pasirašyta ES ir Lietuvos laisvosios prekybos sutartis.3 Tų pačių metų pabaigoje prasidėjo derybos dėl Europos sutarties, kurios baigėsi 1995 m. birželio 12 d. Europos Sutarties pasirašymu.4 1995 m. gruodžio 8 d. Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybė įteikė oficialų prašymą priimti Lietuvos Respubliką į Europos Sąjungą (toliau vadinama ES). Prasidėjo itin sudėtingas derybų etapas, kurio metu Lietuvos teisė buvo derinama su Bendrijos teise. Stojimo derybos buvo oficialiai baigtos 2002 m. gruodžio 12-13 d. Kopenhagoje vykusiame Europos... [to full text] / In the process of EU integration Lithuania faced many complicated legal issues. Constitutional amendments were no exception. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania did not contain any provision for the delegation of state competences. The constitutional jurisprudence of the member states, the case-law of the Court of Justice and academic circles provide different interpretations for the primacy of EU law, the supremacy of the national constitutions, and the concept of sovereignty. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania has not yet expressed any position concerning the interrelationship of EU law and the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania.

No description available.

This thesis critically examines the origins and development of international criminal lave to identify the defining features of this emerging legal tradition. It critically evaluates the experimental approach taken in Article 21 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which attempts to codify an untested normative super-structure to guide this legal tradition. / International criminal law is a hybrid tradition which seeks legitimacy and answers to difficult questions by drawing on other established legal traditions. Its development at the confluence of public international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and national criminal laws has resulted in gaps in difficult cases with no clear answers. These lacunae have been filled by recourse to judicial discretion, exercised consistent with Patrick Glenn's theory of transnational common laws, and by privileging one of the competing aims of international criminal law: enhancing humanitarian protection versus maximizing fairness to the accused.

No abstract available. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of Natal, Durban,1987.

This thesis is an evaluation of the campaign to pass a Judicial Amendment to the Indiana Constitution. The study first explores constitutional revision throughout the United States and then focuses on Indiana. The study traces the origins of the Amendment as well as its content. Next the organization of the Judicial Amendment campaign is traced, as well as the role of various participating groups in advocacy and education. In addition the thesis statistically explores the success or failure of many campaign activities, including the effect of interest groups and urbanization on voting patterns.

Why are national constitutional courts able to affect the actions of national legislatures? The roles and relationships of both constitutional courts and legislatures are defined in the national constitution. Although there is variance across countries, in general constitutional courts are empowered to ensure that laws conform to the principles and values enshrined in the constitution. National legislatures are, at least to some extent, required to conform legislation to the decisions of the constitutional court. Yet both the constitutional court and legislature could alter or avoid these roles. Constitutional courts can expand or contract their duties by applying the constitution in either a broad or restricted manner. Similarly, national legislatures can expand or contract the influence of the constitutional court by complying with or ignoring past and future constitutional court decisions. This dissertation builds on the works of Fish and Kroenig (2009), Schimmelfinning (2006), Maveety and Grosskopf (2004), Finnemore (2003), and Stone (1990) to explain the balance of power between national constitutional courts and national legislatures in the protection and extension of fundamental rights and democracy. By creating a measure of constitutional court autonomy and using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this dissertation will seek to demonstrate that national constitutional court and legislative autonomy must be viewed from both the national and supranational perspective and that a reduction in national legislative autonomy may increase national diffusion of democratic norms and the protection of human rights.

Historians of crime and the criminal justice system have largely neglected the summary process. While an important theme of previous work on the history of crime has been concerned with the use of law, most research has focused on the jury courts of assize and quarter sessions and has used records from provincial England. When summary proceedings have been considered attention has mostly focused on the prosecution of specific offences. By focusing on the summary courts of the City of London this work offers both a summary and a metropolitan dimension to this debate. We know relatively little about the nature of summary courts in this period and whether they are best seen as criminal or civil proceedings: this study addresses that issue throughout. Despite the size and importance of London to eighteenth-century English society we have very few studies of its criminal justice system in this period. The research presented here extends our knowledge of petty crime and its prosecution in the late Hanoverian capital. Using the large number of minute books that have survived for the City summary courts as a basis, this dissertation takes both a quantitative and qualitative approach and examines: the position of these courts within the criminal justice system of London; the networks of policing and watching that served the City; the nature and prosecution of property and violent crime; and the regulation of trade, morality and everyday life in the City of London. In doing so it reveals that, in the City of London, participation in the law at the summary level was extensive and touched all classes of the population. It was at the summary level that most people experienced the law in eighteenth century. As such the summary courts operated as a filter to the wider criminal justice system. The law was also used by a much wider range of people - including many women - than some previous histories have allowed. This thesis therefore supports recent work that has suggested that the criminal justice system was not a rigid tool of an elite class. However, it also concludes that in the City of London the summary courts were an integral part of a wider disciplinary network that regulated everyday life in the capital. Indeed, the City emerges as a highly regulated urban centre in this period. Throughout it argues that discretion and negotiation were at the heart of the summary process and that these were by nature civil rather than criminal courts

No description available.

International environmental law is one of the most dynamic fields of public international law, and has rapidly acquired great breadth and sophistication. Yet the rate of global environmental decline has also increased and is accelerating. Halting and reversing this process is a challenge of effective governance, requiring institutions that can ensure that the now impressive body of environmental norms is faithfully implemented. This thesis explores whether and to what extent international courts and tribunals can play a useful role in international environmental regimes. Consideration is given to the threefold function of adjudication in resolving environmental disputes, in promoting compliance with environmental standards, and in developing environmental rules. The thesis is divided into three Parts. The first Part examines the spectrum of adjudicative bodies that have been involved in the resolution of environmental disputes, situates these within the evolution of institutions for compliance control, and offers a reassessment of their relevance in contemporary environmental governance. The second Part critically assesses the contribution that arbitral awards and judicial decisions have made to the development of norms and principles of environmental law, examining case law relating to transboundary pollution, shared freshwater resources and marine environmental protection. In the third Part of the thesis consideration is given to three looming challenges for international environmental litigation: accommodating greater levels of public participation in adjudicative processes, resolving practical problems stemming from the interaction among multiple jurisdictions, and ensuring that specialised courts and tribunals do not apply environmental norms in a parochial manner that privileges the policy objectives of issue-specific regimes.