[PDF] Is An Originalist Approach To Constitutional Interpretation Legitimate eBook

Author : Roy Whymark
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 10 pages
File Size : 25,17 MB
Release : 2013-01-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 3656348081

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Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: 77%, Birkbeck, University of London, course: American Politics, language: English, abstract: Under Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, the US Supreme Court is designated as the final court of appeal for all cases arising under the Laws, Treaties, and Constitution of the United States (U.S. Const. art. III, § 2). Although the Supreme Court’s role in determining the constitutional legitimacy of those cases brought before it is not explicitly defined, this (largely unchallenged) authority became clear during the foremost years of the republic. In his opinion on Marbury v. Madison (1803), Chief Justice Marshall noted that it was ‘emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.’ Constitutional interpretation addresses ‘how the meaning of the constitution should be discerned, thus allowing the application of substantive constitutional law to a particular set of facts or issues’ (Thomas, 2011:1). Given the ambiguity of its language and the fact that the Constitution is a legal document written, for the most part, in 1787 under very different circumstances from today, this is a challenging undertaking and not without controversy. Indeed, the task of constitutional interpretation, and the different approaches taken by individual judges, is a major area of debate among the judiciary, the populace, and within the political and academic arenas. The position judges adopt vis-à-vis constitutional interpretation lies at the centre of court rulings concerning constitutional law. Since individual judges will have different opinions, constitutional interpretation is unavoidably dependent on the subjective views of the judges involved, whether they be legalistic, attitudinal, or other views along Posner’s spectrum of theoretical influences on judicial behaviour (Posner, 2008). This difference in approaches has been the driver of the politicisation of the judiciary and partly explains the often fractious nature of judicial confirmations. While there is no consensus regarding a singular taxonomy for constitutional interpretation, most scholars agree on the differentiation between the Originalist approach (sometimes referred to, supportively, as the Interpretivist approach) favoured by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and other non-Originalist approaches (often referred to as non-Interpretivist approaches by their detractors). This essay considers whether the Originalist approach is the only legitimate and appropriate method of constitutional interpretation in the United States today.

Author : Robert W. Bennett
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 46,59 MB
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : Law
ISBN : 0801461111

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Problems of constitutional interpretation have many faces, but much of the contemporary discussion has focused on what has come to be called "originalism." The core of originalism is the belief that fidelity to the original understanding of the Constitution should constrain contemporary judges. As originalist thinking has evolved, it has become clear that there is a family of originalist theories, some emphasizing the intent of the framers, while others focus on the original public meaning of the constitutional text. This idea has enjoyed a modern resurgence, in good part in reaction to the assumption of more sweeping power by the judiciary, operating in the name of constitutional interpretation. Those arguing for a "living Constitution" that keeps up with a changing world and changing values have resisted originalism. This difference in legal philosophy and jurisprudence has, since the 1970s, spilled over into party politics and the partisan wrangling over court appointments from appellate courts to the Supreme Court. In Constitutional Originalism, Robert W. Bennett and Lawrence B. Solum elucidate the two sides of this debate and mediate between them in order to separate differences that are real from those that are only apparent. In a thorough exploration of the range of contemporary views on originalism, the authors articulate and defend sharply contrasting positions. Solum brings learning from the philosophy of language to his argument in favor of originalism, and Bennett highlights interpretational problems in the dispute-resolution context, describing instances in which a living Constitution is a more feasible and productive position. The book explores those contrasting positions, to be sure, but also uncovers important points of agreement for the interpretational enterprise. This provocative and absorbing book ends with a bibliographic essay that points to landmark works in the field and helps lay readers and students orient themselves within the literature of the debate.

Author : Sotirios A. Barber
Publisher : OUP USA
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 20,13 MB
Release : 2007-06-07
Category : Law
ISBN : 0195328582

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The presuppositions of constitutional interpretation -- The principal questions of constitutional interpretation -- The principal features of the American constitutional order : the positive constitutionalism of The federalist -- Approaches to constitutional interpretation -- Textualism and consensualism -- Narrow originalism/intentionalism -- Broad originalism -- Structuralism -- Doctrinalism and minimalism -- The philosophic approach -- Pragmatism -- Epilogue: a fusion of approaches to constitutional interpretation.

Author : Jack M. Balkin
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 39,67 MB
Release : 2011-11-29
Category : Law
ISBN : 0674063031

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Originalism and living constitutionalism, so often understood to be diametrically opposing views of our nation’s founding document, are not in conflict—they are compatible. So argues Jack Balkin, one of the leading constitutional scholars of our time, in this long-awaited book. Step by step, Balkin gracefully outlines a constitutional theory that demonstrates why modern conceptions of civil rights and civil liberties, and the modern state’s protection of national security, health, safety, and the environment, are fully consistent with the Constitution’s original meaning. And he shows how both liberals and conservatives, working through political parties and social movements, play important roles in the ongoing project of constitutional construction. By making firm rules but also deliberately incorporating flexible standards and abstract principles, the Constitution’s authors constructed a framework for politics on which later generations could build. Americans have taken up this task, producing institutions and doctrines that flesh out the Constitution’s text and principles. Balkin’s analysis offers a way past the angry polemics of our era, a deepened understanding of the Constitution that is at once originalist and living constitutionalist, and a vision that allows all Americans to reclaim the Constitution as their own.

Author : Grant Huscroft
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : pages
File Size : 30,90 MB
Release : 2011-09-12
Category : Law
ISBN : 1139505130

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Originalism is a force to be reckoned with in constitutional interpretation. At one time a monolithic theory of constitutional interpretation, contemporary originalism has developed into a sophisticated family of theories about how to interpret and reason with a constitution. Contemporary originalists harness the resources of linguistic, moral, and political philosophy to propose methodologies for the interpretation of constitutional texts and provide reasons for fidelity to those texts. The essays in this volume, which includes contributions from the flag bearers of several competing schools of constitutional interpretation, provides an introduction to the development of originalist thought, showcases the great range of contemporary originalist constitutional scholarship, and situates competing schools of thought in dialogue with each other. They also make new contributions to the methodological and normative disputes between originalists and non-originalists, and among originalists themselves.

Author : Keith E. Whittington
Publisher :
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 46,33 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Social Science
ISBN :

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With its detailed and wide-ranging explorations in history, philosophy, and law, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the Constitution ought to be interpreted and what it means to live under a constitutional government."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Richard A. Posner
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 612 pages
File Size : 10,33 MB
Release : 1995
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780674649255

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Legal theory must become more factual and empirical and less conceptual and polemical, Richard Posner argues in this wide-ranging new book. The topics covered include the structure and behavior of the legal profession; constitutional theory; gender, sex, and race theories; interdisciplinary approaches to law; the nature of legal reasoning; and legal pragmatism. Posner analyzes, in witty and passionate prose, schools of thought as different as social constructionism and institutional economics, and scholars and judges as different as Bruce Ackerman, Robert Bork, Ronald Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Richard Rorty, and Patricia Williams. He also engages challenging issues in legal theory that range from the motivations and behavior of judges and the role of rhetoric and analogy in law to the rationale for privacy and blackmail law and the regulation of employment contracts. Although written by a sitting judge, the book does not avoid controversy; it contains frank appraisals of radical feminist and race theories, the behavior of the German and British judiciaries in wartime, and the excesses of social constructionist theories of sexual behavior. Throughout, the book is unified by Posner's distinctive stance, which is pragmatist in philosophy, economic in methodology, and liberal (in the sense of John Stuart Mill's liberalism) in politics. Brilliantly written, eschewing jargon and technicalities, it will make a major contribution to the debate about the role of law in our society.

Author : Adrian Vermeule
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 24,73 MB
Release : 2022-02-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1509548882

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The way that Americans understand their Constitution and wider legal tradition has been dominated in recent decades by two exhausted approaches: the originalism of conservatives and the “living constitutionalism” of progressives. Is it time to look for an alternative? Adrian Vermeule argues that the alternative has been there, buried in the American legal tradition, all along. He shows that US law was, from the founding, subsumed within the broad framework of the classical legal tradition, which conceives law as “a reasoned ordering to the common good.” In this view, law’s purpose is to promote the goods a flourishing political community requires: justice, peace, prosperity, and morality. He shows how this legacy has been lost, despite still being implicit within American public law, and convincingly argues for its recovery in the form of “common good constitutionalism.” This erudite and brilliantly original book is a vital intervention in America’s most significant contemporary legal debate while also being an enduring account of the true nature of law that will resonate for decades with scholars and students.

Author : Robert H. Bork
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 21,27 MB
Release : 2009-11-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1439188866

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Judge Bork shares a personal account of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination as well as his view on politics versus the law. In The Tempting of America, one of our most distinguished legal minds offers a brilliant argument for the wisdom and necessity of interpreting the Constitution according to the “original understanding” of the Framers and the people for whom it was written. Widely hailed as the most important critique of the nation’s intellectual climate since The Closing of the American Mind, The Tempting of America illuminates the history of the Supreme Court and the underlying meaning of constitutional controversy. Essential to understanding the relationship between values and the law, it concludes with a personal account of Judge Bork’s chillingly emblematic experiences during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on his Supreme Court nomination.

Author : David A. Strauss
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 20,93 MB
Release : 2010-05-19
Category : Law
ISBN : 0199703698

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law--one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.