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Constitutional Rights (constitutional + right)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%
Law and Criminology25%

Selected Abstracts

Prudence and Constitutional Rights

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2004
Edward F. McClennen
ABSTRACT. In The Calculus of Consent, Buchanan and Tullock argue for institutional safeguards to ensure maximal benefit for all members of a community against the potential tyranny of the majority. I extend this idea by introducing prudential concerns and argue that they ought to be factored into the decision making that constructs such safeguards. Specifically, I see the safeguarding of prudential concerns for all members of society as a matter that should be secured from the random fate of the political process by constitutional provisions. [source]

A Prolegomenon on Restraint of Children: Implicating Constitutional Rights

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 1 2001
Sheila S. Kennedy J.D.
News media and advocacy groups have brought to public attention a disturbing number of recent deaths proximal to the use of physical restraints. This paper examines the evidence indicating that use of these procedures can be dangerous to patients; explores the theoretical basis and practical application of restraints; and argues not only that their use may be unethical as a therapeutic intervention, but that it may have constitutional implications. [source]

A Modern Paradigm for Campaign Finance: Economic Markets and Lessons from History

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2008
Seth Werfel
Campaign finance is a perennially contentious issue in American politics, with increased significance in the upcoming presidential election. Historically, legislation has attempted to balance the corrupting effects of money in politics with the Constitutional right to free speech. This article argues for a modern paradigm of market-based reform that relaxes controls on the supply of money and aims to limit the demand for private contributions. Specifically, this model introduces affordable government vouchers and secret donation booths, adapted to further expand consumer choice and increase incentives for political participation. Ultimately, applying principles of the market to campaign finance reform will enhance political efficacy and strengthen American democracy. [source]

Rights, review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2001
AMY K. MÄKINEN
This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time,series cross,section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions. [source]

STATE SUPREME COURT APPLICATIONS OF TROXEL v. GRANVILLE AND THE COURTS' RELUCTANCE TO DECLARE GRANDPARENT VISITATION STATUTES UNCONSTITUTIONAL

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
Kristine L. RobertsArticle first published online: 15 MAR 200
In this article, the author reviews state supreme court applications of Troxel v. Granville, analyzing the impact of the decision on the courts' ongoing efforts to adjudicate visitation disputes between parents and grandparents. Set against a background of legislative recognition of grandparents' rights and judicial uncertainty regarding the appropriate role of nonparents in children's lives, Troxel reaffirmed the constitutional right of parents to direct their children's upbringing. The author argues that state supreme courts evaluating gradparent visitation statutes and seeking to enforce Troxel's presumption in favor of parents should be more willing to strike down overly broad statutes. Such an approach would be a positive step toward addressing the excessive judicial discretion that the Troxel Court found so problematic, and would signal to state legislatures the need for statutes that both provide for the needs of children and protect parental rights. [source]

Legal Change and Gender Inequality: Changes in Muslim Family Law in India

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 3 2008
Narendra Subramanian
Group-specific family laws are said to provide women fewer rights and impede policy change. India's family law systems specific to religious groups underwent important gender-equalizing changes over the last generation. The changes in the laws of the religious minorities were unexpected, as conservative elites had considerable indirect influence over these laws. Policy elites changed minority law only if they found credible justification for change in group laws, group norms, and group initiatives, not only in constitutional rights and transnational human rights law. Muslim alimony and divorce laws were changed on this basis, giving women more rights without abandoning cultural accommodation. Legal mobilization and the outlook of policy makers,specifically their approach to regulating family life, their understanding of group norms, and their normative vision of family life,shaped the major changes in Indian Muslim law. More gender-equalizing legal changes are possible based on the same sources. [source]

The Etiology of Individual-Targeted Intolerance: Group Stereotypes and Judgments of Individual Group Members

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2000
Ewa A. Golebiowska
Virtually all scientific writing on attitudes toward political unorthodoxy in the United States focuses on group-targeted tolerance, or the question of whether Americans are willing to extend constitutional rights and freedoms to groups outside the political mainstream. Less is known about the etiology of individual-targeted tolerance, or the question of whether Americans are willing to tolerate the exercise of constitutional rights and freedoms by individuals who belong to unpopular groups. This paper examines the sources of attitudes toward individuals belonging to disliked and stereotyped political groups,in particular, the extent to which political tolerance judgments about gay and racist targets are influenced by attributes of those targets that are either consistent or inconsistent with group stereotypes. In line with expectations, an empirical analysis showed that individuals exhibiting attributes inconsistent with their group's stereotype (whether neutral with respect to stereotypic beliefs or directly challenging them) are tolerated more than those with stereotype-consistent attributes. Because members of political outgroups can control the timing of disclosing their group membership, they have the power to determine whether and to what extent stereotypic beliefs associated with their group will influence the reactions they provoke. This analysis confirms that the impact of stereotypic beliefs on tolerance varies as a function of timing of group membership revelation, although the direction of this interaction depends on the intensity of dislike for the group of which the individual target is a member. [source]

Retrofitting the Administrative State to the Constitution: Congress and the Judiciary's Twentieth-Century Progress

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2000
David H. Rosenbloom
One of the twentieth century's "big questions" for United States government has been how best to retrofit, or integrate, the full-fledged federal administrative state into the constitutional scheme. The public administration orthodoxy initially advocated placing the executive branch almost entirely under presidential control; Congress and the federal judiciary responded otherwise. Congress decided to treat the agencies as its extensions for legislative functions and to supervise them more closely. The courts developed an elaborate framework for imposing constitutional rights, values, and reasoning on public administration practice. As the challenge of retrofitting continues into the twenty-first century, public administrators might profitably play a larger role in the constitutional discourse regarding the administrative state's place in constitutional government. [source]