Keeping Faith with the Constitution

Keeping Faith with the Constitution

Author: Goodwin Liu

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-08-05

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0199752834

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Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.


Former Yugoslavia Through Documents

Former Yugoslavia Through Documents

Author: Snezana Trifunovska

Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

Published: 1999-05

Total Pages: 1394

ISBN-13: 9004639829

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From the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s onwards, the world's attention has been occupied with the events which eventually led to the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to the creation of five independent and sovereign states. Apart from the humanitarian disaster and the devastated economies of the countries created on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, it brought some important issues of international law to the forefront, and provided the impetus for some new and rapid developments. The book is an epilogue to the first, very successful, collection Yugoslavia through Documents: from its creation to its dissolution, published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in 1994. However, because of the complexity of the issues in the political, military, humanitarian and legal fields, its structure is different. The book is divided into an Introduction and nine Parts, each of them dealing with specific issues and containing, where appropriate, the Editor's note, comment or additional information. These two volumes constitute an absolutely essential collection for all research libraries.