Judicial Independence and the American Constitution: A Democratic Paradox

Judicial Independence and the American Constitution: A Democratic Paradox

by Martin H. Redish
Judicial Independence and the American Constitution: A Democratic Paradox

Judicial Independence and the American Constitution: A Democratic Paradox

by Martin H. Redish

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Overview

The Framers of the American Constitution took special pains to ensure that the governing principles of the republic were insulated from the reach of simple majorities. Only super-majoritarian amendments could modify these fundamental constitutional dictates. The Framers established a judicial branch shielded from direct majoritarian political accountability to protect and enforce these constitutional limits. Paradoxically, only a counter-majoritarian judicial branch could ensure the continued vitality of our representational form of government.

This important lesson of the paradox of American democracy has been challenged and often ignored by office holders and legal scholars. Judicial Independence and the American Constitution provocatively defends the centrality of these special protections of judicial independence. Martin H. Redish explains how the nation's system of counter-majoritarian constitutionalism cannot survive absent the vesting of final powers of constitutional interpretation and enforcement in the one branch of government expressly protected by the Constitution from direct political accountability: the judicial branch. He uncovers how the current framework of American constitutional law has been unwisely allowed to threaten or undermine these core precepts of judicial independence.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780804792905
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication date: 03/21/2017
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Martin H. Redish is the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at the Northwestern UniversityPritzker School of Law. He is the author of The Adversary First Amendment (2013), Wholesale Justice (2009) and The Logic of Persecution (2005), all with Stanford UniversityPress.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction, America's Contribution to Political Thought: Prophylactic Judicial Independence as an Instrument of Democratic Constitutionalism 1

1 The Foundations of American Constitutionalism 13

2 A Taxonomy of Judicial Independence 52

3 Judicial Impeachment, Judicial Discipline, and American Constitutionalism 77

4 State Courts, Due Process, and the Dangers of Popular Constitutionalism 110

5 Constitutionalism, Democracy, and the Pathology of Legislative Deception 139

6 Habeas Corpus, Due Process, and American Constitutionalism 166

Conclusion 199

Notes 207

Index 259

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