Judicial Decisions (judicial + decision)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Terms modified by Judicial Decisions

  • judicial decision making

  • Selected Abstracts


    The Statistical Analysis of Judicial Decisions and Legal Rules with Classification Trees

    JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2010
    Jonathan P. Kastellec
    A key question in the quantitative study of legal rules and judicial decision making is the structure of the relationship between case facts and case outcomes. Legal doctrine and legal rules are general attempts to define this relationship. This article summarizes and utilizes a statistical method relatively unexplored in political science and legal scholarship,classification trees,that offers a flexible way to study legal doctrine. I argue that this method, while not replacing traditional statistical tools for studying judicial decisions, can better capture many aspects of the relationship between case facts and case outcomes. To illustrate the method's advantages, I conduct classification tree analyses of search and seizure cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and confession cases decided by the courts of appeals. These analyses illustrate the ability of classification trees to increase our understanding of legal rules and legal doctrine. [source]


    The Impact of Legal Mobilization and Judicial Decisions: The Case of Official Minority-Language Education Policy in Canada for Francophones Outside Quebec

    LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004
    Troy Q. Riddell
    The article investigates the impact of legal mobilization and judicial decisions on official minority-language education (OMLE) policy in the Canadian provinces outside Quebec, using the "factor-oriented" and "dispute-centered" theories of judicial impact developed by U.S. scholars. The Canadian Supreme Court's decision in Mahé v. Alberta (1990), which broadly interpreted Section 23 of the Charter of Rights to include management and control of OMLE programs and schools, along with federal funding to the provinces to implement OMLE policy, are important to explaining OMLE policy change as predicted by the factor-oriented approach. The dispute-centered approach, on the other hand, helps us understand how the Charter of Rights and judicial decisions shaped the goals and discourse of Francophone groups in the policy process and, more instrumentally, provided opportunity structures that Francophone groups exploited effectively. The article concludes that both approaches to explaining judicial impact could be accommodated within an institutional model of judicial impact that construes institutions as state actors, as sets of rules, and as frameworks of meaning and interpretation. Such an approach would allow for the development of a more comparative model of judicial impact. [source]


    The Rational Reconstruction of Weighing and Balancing on the Basis of Teleological-Evaluative Considerations in the Justification of Judicial Decisions

    RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2008
    EVELINE T. FETERIS
    In this contribution the author develops an argumentation model for the reconstruction of weighing and balancing on the basis of teleological-evaluative considerations. The model is intended as a heuristic and critical tool for the rational reconstruction of the justification of judicial decisions. From the perspective of a rational discussion, it makes explicit the choices underlying the weighing and balancing on the basis of goals and values so that they can be made explicit and submitted to rational critique. [source]


    District Judges and Possession Proceedings

    JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2006
    Dave Cowan
    In this article, we draw on data obtained in interviews with District Judges about the factors which they say influence the exercise of their discretion in possession proceedings. Analysing the data set enabled us to create three ideal types of judicial decision,making which we have labelled ,liberal', ,patrician', and formalist'. We discuss the differences between each ideal type across five different variables: the District Judge role; approach; view of occupiers; the problem; behaviour of occupiers. Our data demonstrate a set of reasons to explain different approaches and outcomes between different District Judges (as well as the perhaps unlikely identification of a ,maverick' or ,idiosyncratic' style of judging). We conclude by suggesting on the basis of our data that, despite calls to structure or remove the discretion from District Judges, any such changes are unlikely to have much effect. [source]


    Fragmentation of Power and the Emergence of an Effective Judiciary in Mexico, 1994,2002

    LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2007
    Julio Ríos-Figueroa
    ABSTRACT Legal reforms that make judges independent from political pressures and empower them with judicial review do not make an effective judiciary. Something has to fill the gap between institutional design and effectiveness. When the executive and legislative powers react to an objectionable judicial decision, the judiciary may be weak and deferential; but coordination difficulties between the elected branches can loosen the constraints on courts. This article argues that the fragmentation of political power can enable a judiciary to rule against power holders' interests without being systematically challenged or ignored. This argument is tested with an analysis of the Mexican Supreme Court decisions against the PRI on constitutional cases from 1994 to 2002. The probability of the court's voting against the PRI increased as the PRI lost the majority in the Chamber of Deputies in 1997 and the presidency in 2000. [source]


    The Function of the Proportionality Principle in EU Law

    EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010
    Tor-Inge Harbo
    In this article the author assesses the proportionality principle in EU law from a legal theoretical and constitutional perspective with the aim of discovering the function of the principle. Having first discussed the implications of the proportionality principle being a general principle of law, and what function it has,namely to secure legitimacy for judicial decisions,the author suggests that there are several ways in which the principle can be interpreted. There is, nevertheless, a limit to this interpretation determined by the proposed function of the principle. In the third part of the article, the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) interpretation of the principle is assessed. The assessment clearly shows that the ECJ is interpreting the principle in different distinguishable ways. The question could, however, be raised as to whether the ECJ in some areas is interpreting the principle in a way that undermines the very function of it. [source]


    (RE)MAPPING INDIGENOUS ,RACE'/PLACE IN POSTCOLONIAL PENINSULAR MALAYSIA,

    GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006
    Alice M. Nah
    ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on how indigeneity has been constructed, deployed and ruptured in postcolonial Malay(si)a. Prior to the independence of Malaya in 1957, British colonial administrators designated certain groups of inhabitants as being ,indigenous' to the land through European imaginings of ,race'. The majority, politically dominant Malays were deemed the definitive peoples of this geographical territory, and the terrain was naturalized as ,the Malay Peninsula'. Under the postcolonial government, British conceptions of the peninsula were retained; the Malays were given political power and recognition of their ,special (indigenous) position' in ways that Orang Asli minorities,also considered indigenous - were not. This uneven recognition is evident in current postcolonial political, economic, administrative and legal arrangements for Malays and Orang Asli. In recent years, Orang Asli advocates have been articulating their struggles over land rights by drawing upon transnational discourses concerning indigenous peoples. Recent judicial decisions concerning native title for the Orang Asli potentially disrupt ethno-nationalist assertions of the peninsula as belonging to the ,native' Malays. These contemporary contests in postcolonial identity formations unsettle hegemonic geopolitical ,race'/place narratives of Peninsular Malaysia. [source]


    The Statistical Analysis of Judicial Decisions and Legal Rules with Classification Trees

    JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2010
    Jonathan P. Kastellec
    A key question in the quantitative study of legal rules and judicial decision making is the structure of the relationship between case facts and case outcomes. Legal doctrine and legal rules are general attempts to define this relationship. This article summarizes and utilizes a statistical method relatively unexplored in political science and legal scholarship,classification trees,that offers a flexible way to study legal doctrine. I argue that this method, while not replacing traditional statistical tools for studying judicial decisions, can better capture many aspects of the relationship between case facts and case outcomes. To illustrate the method's advantages, I conduct classification tree analyses of search and seizure cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and confession cases decided by the courts of appeals. These analyses illustrate the ability of classification trees to increase our understanding of legal rules and legal doctrine. [source]


    ,Condemn a Little More, Understand a Little Less': The Political Context and Rights' Implications of the Domestic and European Rulings in the Venables-Thompson Case

    JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2000
    Deena Haydon
    In 1993 Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were found guilty of the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Bulger. Aged ten at the time of the offence, the children were tried in an adult court before a judge and jury amidst a blaze of publicity. They were named by the trial judge and sentenced to detention at Her Majesty's Pleasure [HMp]. The Home Secretary set a minimum tariff of fifteen years imprisonment. In December 1999 the European Court of Human Rights held that, in the conduct of the trial and the fixing of the tariff, the United Kingdom government was responsible for violating the European Convention on Human Rights. This article maps how the case became a watershed in youth justice procedure and practice influencing Labour's proposals for reform and the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. Examining the progression of appeals through the domestic and European courts, it explores the dichotomous philosophies separating the United Kingdom and European approaches to the age of criminal responsibility, the prosecution and punishment of children, and the influence of political policy on judicial decisions. Finally, the ,backlash' against ,threatening children', the affirmation of adult power and knowledge, and the implications of the European judgments in the context of a rights-based agenda are analysed. [source]


    The Impact of Legal Mobilization and Judicial Decisions: The Case of Official Minority-Language Education Policy in Canada for Francophones Outside Quebec

    LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004
    Troy Q. Riddell
    The article investigates the impact of legal mobilization and judicial decisions on official minority-language education (OMLE) policy in the Canadian provinces outside Quebec, using the "factor-oriented" and "dispute-centered" theories of judicial impact developed by U.S. scholars. The Canadian Supreme Court's decision in Mahé v. Alberta (1990), which broadly interpreted Section 23 of the Charter of Rights to include management and control of OMLE programs and schools, along with federal funding to the provinces to implement OMLE policy, are important to explaining OMLE policy change as predicted by the factor-oriented approach. The dispute-centered approach, on the other hand, helps us understand how the Charter of Rights and judicial decisions shaped the goals and discourse of Francophone groups in the policy process and, more instrumentally, provided opportunity structures that Francophone groups exploited effectively. The article concludes that both approaches to explaining judicial impact could be accommodated within an institutional model of judicial impact that construes institutions as state actors, as sets of rules, and as frameworks of meaning and interpretation. Such an approach would allow for the development of a more comparative model of judicial impact. [source]


    The public domain under pressure.

    PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2003
    Sponsored by SIG IFP
    Public domain information, whether limited to judicial decisions or extended to all government-authored or sponsored works, has been expounded as a means of ensuring a knowledgeable citizenry, promoting economic advancement, and ensuring that publicly funded information is not "double taxed". However, the public domain has come under increased pressures as the global information economy changes. The speakers in this session will address these pressures from a number of different national and disciplinary views. [source]


    The Rational Reconstruction of Weighing and Balancing on the Basis of Teleological-Evaluative Considerations in the Justification of Judicial Decisions

    RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2008
    EVELINE T. FETERIS
    In this contribution the author develops an argumentation model for the reconstruction of weighing and balancing on the basis of teleological-evaluative considerations. The model is intended as a heuristic and critical tool for the rational reconstruction of the justification of judicial decisions. From the perspective of a rational discussion, it makes explicit the choices underlying the weighing and balancing on the basis of goals and values so that they can be made explicit and submitted to rational critique. [source]


    Judicial Review and Deliberative Democracy: A Circular Model of Law Creation and Legitimation

    RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2001
    Mark Van Hoecke
    In this paper the author discusses the legitimation of judicial review of legislation. He argues that such a legitimation is not just a moral matter but is to be considered more generally in terms of societal acceptability, since it is based on a wide range of reasons including moral, social and pragmatic concerns. Moreover, the paper stresses that the legitimation of judicial decisions should be properly viewed in a circular perspective, so that the relationship between legislators and judges cannot be reduced to an absolute supremacy of those who are democratically elected over those who apply the law. On the contrary, the law is constantly made, adapted and developed in legal practice and legal decisions are basically legitimated through several processes of deliberative communication. [source]


    The Canadian public service has a personality

    CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA, Issue 3 2006
    Donald J. Savoie
    This paper argues that this view no longer reflects reality. It looks to developments in both countries to justify this contention, maintaining that the claim is even more relevant in Canada than in the United Kingdom. The public service's separate identity can be found in our unwritten, informal constitution. A number of measures introduced in recent years, including access to information and whistleblowing legislation, combined with other developments, such as the role played by the public service in a transition to a new government and a number of judicial decisions, have also given a distinct persona and a constitutional personality to the public service. The implications for the relationship between politicians and public servants and for accountability in government are far-reaching. The challenge now is to put in place measures designed to protect the non-partisan, professional character of the public service. Sommaire: La notion selon laquelle la fonction publique n'a pas de personnalité constitutionnelle ni d'identité distincte du gouvernement du jour a été un élément clé dans les négociations qui guident les relations entre le Parlement, les ministres et les fonctionnaires en Grande-Bretagne tout comme au Canada. Cet article prétend que ce point de vue ne reflète plus la réalité. II étudie les faits nouveaux dans les deux pays pour justifier cette assertion, et maintient que cette allégation est encore plus pertinente au Canada qu'au Royaume-Uni. L'identité distincte de la fonction publique peut se trouver dans notre constitution orale, informelle. Un certain nombre de mesures adoptées ces dernières années - dont les lois sur l'accès à l'information et sur la dénonciation - s'ajoutant à d'autres développements tels que le rôle joué par la fonction publique au cours de la transition vers un nouveau gouvernement et un certain nombre de jurisprudences, ont aussi donné une identité distincte et une personnalité constitutionnelle à la fonction publique. Les implications que cela entraîne pour les relations entre les politiciens et les fonctionnaires ainsi que pour l'imputabilité au sein du gouvernement sont très vastes. Dés lors, le défi consiste à mettre en place des mesures conçues pour protéger l'aspect professionnel et non partisan de la fonction publique. [source]


    Official minority-language education policy outside Quebec: The impact of Section 23 of the Charter and judicial decisions

    CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA, Issue 1 2003
    Troy Q. Riddell
    The importance of looking beyond Charter jurisprudence to the broader policy impact of litigation and judicial decisions is revealed. The Supreme Court'sMahé decision was particularly important in putting omle policy on the agenda and for providing Francophone groups with important legal, political and symbolic resources that were effectively exploited to generate policy change. Sommaire: Ce texte soutient que les litiges et la jurisprudence déoulant de l'article 23 de la Charte ont joué un rôle essentiel dam l'élargissement et l'uniformisation de la politique relative à l'enseignement dans la langue de la minorité en dehors du Quebec. Il révèle l'importance de voir au-delè de la Charte quelles ont été les répercussions des litiges et de la jurisprudence sur la politique dans son ensemble. La dkision rendue par la Cour suprême dans l'affaire Mahé a été particulierement importante en mettant à l'ordre du jour la politique de l'enseignement dans la langue de la minorité et en offrant aux groupes francophones d'importantes ressources juridiques, politiques et symboliques dont ils ont effedivement su tirer parti pour engendrer une modification de la politique. [source]