{"title":"Rediscovering Constitutional Law: Succession Upon the Death of the Prime Minister","authors":"A. Dodek","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1293510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1293510","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the issue of succession under the Canadian Constitution when the Prime Minister dies in office. No Canadian Prime Minister has died in office since the 19th century. This article addresses the complex interplay of various constitutional conventions and the roles of party leaders and the Governor General and ultimately concludes that the status quo is wanting. The author proposes a political solution to this constitutional problem.","PeriodicalId":284892,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Constitutions eJournal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2000-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115129450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Corradetti, G. Sartor, Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, Aoife O’Donoghue, Pavlos Eleftheriadis, M. Carrai, E. Petersmann
{"title":"Global Constitutionalism without Global Democracy (?)","authors":"C. Corradetti, G. Sartor, Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, Aoife O’Donoghue, Pavlos Eleftheriadis, M. Carrai, E. Petersmann","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2880469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2880469","url":null,"abstract":"The contributions in this volume investigate interconnected aspects of the democratic deficit in global constitutionalism.The commonly shared question is the following: to what extent, if any, a global (or cosmopolitan) shift of international law can proceed absent a transnational democratic check? Some scholars are convinced that this is a real problem since that a ‘division of labour’ is to be recognized between national and regional/international legal levels, only the first needing a democratic legitimacy. The contributors to this volume, on the contrary tend to share the view that detaching the production of international law from constituent will, as well as from a democratic framework, can indeed undermine constitutional legitimacy. Furthermore, this may open the way to forms of domination that affect also state’s democratic institutions from within.What is the way out from this deadlock? How is it possible to tame global constitutionalism in order to avoid a global Leviathan? The collection of essays here presented attempts to conceptualize some of the central challenges affecting contemporary patterns of legal dispersion and fragmentation. They follow a conceptual-historical thread which starts with a modern Kantian understanding of the problem, and unfolds into the discussion of issues of constitutional pluralism, institutional legitimacy and the risk of tyranny. The volume includes analyses of the role of China and the EU, two of the most important actors, even though perhaps at the opposite pole of the global constitutional project.","PeriodicalId":284892,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Constitutions eJournal","volume":"34 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120865646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sanctioning Faith: Religion, State, and U.S.-Cuban Relations","authors":"Jill I. Goldenziel","doi":"10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim190140072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim190140072","url":null,"abstract":"Fidel Castro’s government actively suppressed religion in Cuba for decades. Yet in recent years Cuba has experienced a dramatic flourishing of religious life. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government has increased religious liberty by opening political space for religious belief and practice. In 1991, the Cuban Communist Party removed atheism as a prerequisite for membership. One year later, Cuba amended its constitution to deem itself a secular state rather than an atheist state. Since that time, religious life in Cuba has grown exponentially. All religious denominations, from the Catholic Church to the Afro-Cuban religious societies to the Jewish and Muslim communities, report increased participation in religious rites. Religious social service organizations like Caritas have opened in Cuba, providing crucial social services to Cubans of all religious faiths. These religious institutions are assisted by groups from the United States traveling legally to Cuba on religious visas and carrying vital medicine, aid, and religious paraphernalia. What explains the Cuban government’s sudden accommodation of religion? Drawing on original field research in Havana, I argue that the Cuban government has strategically increased religious liberty for political gain. Loopholes in U.S. sanctions policies have allowed aid to flow into Cuba from the United States via religious groups, tying Cuba’s religious marketplace to its emerging economic markets. The Cuban government has learned from the experience of similar religious awakenings in post-Communist states in Eastern Europe and has shrewdly managed the workings of religious organizations while permitting individual spiritual revival. By allowing greater public expression of religious faith, the Cuban government has opened the door to religious pluralism on the island while closely monitoring religious groups to prevent political opposition. As the Obama Administration has already begun to ease U.S. sanctions on Cuba, these recent changes in Cuban law may allow the U.S. to promote political change in Cuba through religious civil society institutions.","PeriodicalId":284892,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Constitutions eJournal","volume":"735 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129416159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Constitution as Suicide Pact","authors":"S. Prakash","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2857462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2857462","url":null,"abstract":"Michael Paulsen has written a wonderful, creative article. In his characteristically engaging manner, he argues that we ought to employ a \"meta-rule of construction\" and consistently construe the Constitution to avoid \"constitutional implosion.\" Where such \"saving\" constructions are impossible, however, the law of self-preservation must take precedence. Priority must \"be given to the preservation of the nation whose Constitution it is, for the sake of preserving constitutional government over the long haul, even at the expense of specific constitutional provisions.\"'Professor Paulsen does not thereby countenance constitutional \"violations,\" at least in his own mind. To engage in regime and constitutional preservation, even at the expense of particular constitutional provisions, is to act consistent with the Constitution rather than contrary to it. According to Professor Paulsen, the Constitution contains a general self-preservation exemption (the rule of necessity) to its seemingly iron-clad prohibitions and rights. \u0000Who favors constitutional suicide? More accurately, who favors a constitution that lacks an emergency provision authorizing the President to suspend some or all of its parts? Let me be the first to fall on my sword. Though I count myself as one of the many admirers of Professor Paulsen's work, I do not believe that he has made his case, at least not yet. I question whether the Constitution contains a \"metarule of construction\" which requires that the \"Constitution should be construed, where possible, to avoid constitutionally self-destructive re-suits.\" Moreover, I doubt that the Constitution grants the President a latent and more powerful authority to sacrifice constitutional provisions in order to preserve and defend the Constitution and nation as a whole. In my view, though the Constitution creates a powerful chief executive, it does not empower the President to suspend the Constitution in order to save it.","PeriodicalId":284892,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Constitutions eJournal","volume":"2001 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128276906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}