{"title":"Two Types of Formalism of the Rule of Law","authors":"Konatsu Nishigai","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab039","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aims of this article are twofold: (i) to propose an explanatory framework, focusing on law-making acts, for accounting for whether the formal requirements of the rule of law are fulfilled; and (ii) to propose two further models within this framework. One model, which I call ‘rulebook formalism’, pertains to Parliament’s law-making acts; another model, which I call ‘rights formalism’, concerns the courts’ law-making acts. This distinction results from the different modality of law, ie the different natures of law-making acts. Drawing on speech act theory, I give a general account of the formal requirements as the success conditions of law-making acts. Then, applying this framework, I discuss the formal requirements for Parliament’s law-making acts and the courts’ law-making acts respectively.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"495 - 520"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61433379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Purposes, Anti-entrenchment and Judicial Protection of the Democratic Process","authors":"J. Rowbottom","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab037","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The legality of decisions made for political purposes is a recurring issue in administrative law. In this article, it will be argued that generalisations should not be made about ‘political’ decisions as a single category. Instead, there are different types of political consideration, which raise different issues when assessing the legality of a decision. This article singles out a particular type of political decision for condemnation: decisions made to gain a political advantage by deliberately changing the systems of democratic accountability. Examples include the engineering of the electoral system to produce favourable results, the use of public power to punish critics and the use of public resources to publish partisan propaganda. The article will argue that the legality of such political decisions should not be assessed solely within the ordinary administrative law framework, but under a constitutional principle of anti-entrenchment and process protection.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49097635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Moral Impact Theory of Law","authors":"Ezequiel H. Monti","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab035","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Mark Greenberg argues that legal obligations are those moral obligations created by the actions of legal institutions in the legally proper way (Moral Impact Theory of Law, MITL). Here I defend three main claims. First, I argue that, although very often misunderstood, Joseph Raz is also a defender of MITL. Secondly, I argue that while both Greenberg and Raz are committed to MITL, they disagree about the conditions under which a moral obligation can be said to be created in the legally proper way. Finally, I argue that Raz’s variant of MITL is better than Greenberg’s. It rests on a more plausible account of authority and it avoids one of the crucial defects threatening Greenberg’s view, namely, its overinclusiveness.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46064353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A New Philosophy for the Margin of Appreciation and European Consensus","authors":"B. Tripkovic","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article advances an anti-foundationalist account of the key doctrines of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR): the margin of appreciation (MoA) and European consensus (EuC). The first part of the article argues that anti-foundationalism, which understands the existence of human rights as ultimately dependent on social practices and their justification as based on a plurality of values, is a credible conception of human rights grounds. The second part contends that anti-foundationalism offers the best explanation of the MoA and EuC, without making the ECtHR’s practice less normatively appealing. These arguments challenge the dominant critiques of the MoA and EuC, which often assume, but rarely explicitly defend, a foundationalist understanding of human rights. While the ECtHR’s use of the MoA and EuC can be inadequate, this is not because it is mistaken about the grounds of human rights.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"207 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48696728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constitutional Transformation and Gender Equality: The Case of the Post-Arab Uprisings North African Constitutions","authors":"Antonio‐Martín Porras‐Gómez","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab028","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The recognition of gender equality has become one of the most important trends in contemporary constitutional law. Nonetheless, a crucial question lingers: is it leading to material constitutional transformation? In order to better understand it, this article presents a case study on the constitutional reconfigurations undergone in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab uprisings. The main vectors of constitutional change are identified from a descriptive-analytical perspective. Even if they kept idiosyncratic elements of persistent discrimination, the new charters were inserted in the globalised trends of constitutional design, bringing about a strong formal expansion of gender equality rights. On the whole, however, little material progress has been made. This suboptimal material transformation is explained by means of research arguments framed in legal evolutionist theories. Finally, the article elucidates why the greater constitutional verbosity in the recognition of gender equality did not translate into greater parity.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46223345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Constituent Power and Constituent Authority†","authors":"George Duke, E. Arcioni","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This review article offers a critical appraisal of Joel Colón-Ríos’s Constituent Power and the Law. It argues that while Colón-Ríos’s book is undoubtedly a major advance in scholarship on constituent power, it leaves the reader wanting more illumination in its treatment of the relationship between the descriptive and the normative dimensions of the concept.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49382276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interpreting and Reframing the Appropriate Adult Safeguard","authors":"R. Dehaghani","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqab029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The appropriate adult (AA) safeguard is an important procedural safeguard that can be implemented to protect vulnerable suspects at the police investigative stage of the criminal process. The safeguard is available for young suspects (below the age of 18) and adult suspects who are defined as vulnerable, and can be performed by a vast array of individuals. It is intended to protect evidence, enable effective participation and avoid miscarriages of justice. However, the safeguard lacks an underpinning conceptual framework; it is, and can, be interpreted in multiple ways, thus undermining its efficacy. Drawing upon doctrinal and socio-legal analysis, this article examines how the safeguard is—and, crucially, can be—conceptualised. It is argued that, although it is used principally as an evidential safeguard, the appropriate adult could be reimagined through the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child, with a specific focus on allowing for effective participation of the vulnerable suspect.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"187 - 206"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43136989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Majority Rule Justified in Constitutional Adjudication?","authors":"Cristóbal Caviedes","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqaa055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqaa055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, I challenge the use of a majority voting rule (majority rule) to declare statutes unconstitutional in many constitutional courts. To do this, I briefly present four main features of majority rule and assess whether these features (separately and jointly considered) provide definitive reasons for using this voting rule over others in constitutional adjudication. I conclude that these features do not provide such reasons either individually or taken together. This conclusion enables one to analyse whether constitutional courts should use other voting rules in constitutional adjudication, such as supermajority rules.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/ojls/gqaa055","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44902586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Loosely Relational Constitutional Rights","authors":"Tom Kohavi","doi":"10.1093/ojls/gqaa049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqaa049","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article attends to claims that the expansionist trend in modern constitutional practices resulted in the recognition of many norms that are not real rights: they fail to guide and constrain duty-bearers and empower and protect right-holders because they are too abstract and can be limited too regularly. It claims that many constitutional rights are, indeed, ‘loosely relational’: the correlation between them and duties is flexible and affected by considerations external to the direct relations between the right-holder and the duty-bearer. However, it adds that, the assumption that rights must be ‘strictly relational’ for them to exhibit the robust normativity that gives rights their force and value is incorrect. This is important because loosely relational constitutional rights confer this robust normativity on consequentialist standards for the evaluation of legal norms and activities: a fundamental role constitutional rights play in modern liberal legal systems, reflecting a collective commitment to the realisation of social justice.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/ojls/gqaa049","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42562433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}