Reconstructing rights : courts, parties, and equality rights in India, South Africa, and the United States

Resource Information

The work Reconstructing rights : courts, parties, and equality rights in India, South Africa, and the United States represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Biddle Law Library - University of Pennsylvania Law School. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Reconstructing rights : courts, parties, and equality rights in India, South Africa, and the United States

Title remainder

courts, parties, and equality rights in India, South Africa, and the United States

Statement of responsibility

Stephan Stohler

Creator

• Stohler, Stephan, 1977-

Author

• Stohler, Stephan, 1977-

Subject

• Equality before the law -- South Africa
• Equality before the law -- India
• Equality before the law -- United States
• Equality before the law -- Political aspects

Language

eng

Summary

Judges often behave in surprising ways when they re-interpret laws and constitutions. Contrary to existing expectations, judges regularly abandon their own established interpretations in favor of new understandings. In Reconstructing Rights, Stephan Stohler offers a new theory of judicial behavior which demonstrates that judges do not act alone. Instead, Stohler shows that judges work in a deliberative fashion with aligned partisans in the elected branches to articulate evolving interpretations of major statutes and constitutions. Reconstructing Rights draws on legislative debates, legal briefs, and hundreds of judicial opinions issued from high courts in India, South Africa, and the United States in the area of discrimination and affirmative action. These materials demonstrate judges' willingness to provide interpretative leadership. But they also demonstrate how judges relinquish their leadership roles when their aligned counterparts disagree. This pattern of behavior indicates that judges do not exercise exclusive authority over constitutional interpretation. Rather, that task is subject to greater democratic influence than is often acknowledged

Member of

• Comparative constitutional law and policy

Cataloging source

UkCbUP

Index

index present

LC call number

K3250

LC item number

.S76 2019

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Series statement

Comparative constitutional law and policy