In the late nineties, Barry Weingast argued that constitutional enforcement requires coordinated ... more In the late nineties, Barry Weingast argued that constitutional enforcement requires coordinated social responses to transgressions (Weingast 1997). Courts step in when it is unclear if a transgression occurred. The constitutional courts provide focal points for how to interpret the constitution (Vanberg 2011). In many instances, there is no doubt about the constitutionality of legislation. Consider, as an example Donald Trump's so-called "Muslim ban" which he had to walk back merely a few days later. In countries with a long-established tradition of judiciary independence, constitutional courts do not need to intervene all that frequently to exert their power. The sheer anticipation of their intervention is typically enough to prevent the executive from going down the path of unconstitutional legislation. In young democracies, where the rule of law tradition is still in its infancy and there are considerably more issues that call for clarification from Constitutional Courts; the anticipation of having key pieces of legislation struck down serves as a temptation for ruling governments to weaken the authority of constitutional courts. In part because the constitutions themselves are younger, but also, in part, because their societies are not yet well socialized to the ideas of rule of law, when constitutional crisis strikes a young democracy, the stakes are high. human rights, such as rights of religious and ethnic minorities, are endangered. The dilemma of how to guarantee individual rights at times of constitutional jeopardy is a pressing one and young democracies being more sensitive to such crises, offer a laboratory for designing and studying such responses in more mature democracies. The articles collected in this issue come from a conference organized on the topic of constitutional crises and human rights at the University of Chicago in May of 2017 with the help of
In the late nineties, Barry Weingast argued that constitutional enforcement requires coordinated ... more In the late nineties, Barry Weingast argued that constitutional enforcement requires coordinated social responses to transgressions (Weingast 1997). Courts step in when it is unclear if a transgression occurred. The constitutional courts provide focal points for how to interpret the constitution (Vanberg 2011). In many instances, there is no doubt about the constitutionality of legislation. Consider, as an example Donald Trump's so-called "Muslim ban" which he had to walk back merely a few days later. In countries with a long-established tradition of judiciary independence, constitutional courts do not need to intervene all that frequently to exert their power. The sheer anticipation of their intervention is typically enough to prevent the executive from going down the path of unconstitutional legislation. In young democracies, where the rule of law tradition is still in its infancy and there are considerably more issues that call for clarification from Constitutional Courts; the anticipation of having key pieces of legislation struck down serves as a temptation for ruling governments to weaken the authority of constitutional courts. In part because the constitutions themselves are younger, but also, in part, because their societies are not yet well socialized to the ideas of rule of law, when constitutional crisis strikes a young democracy, the stakes are high. human rights, such as rights of religious and ethnic minorities, are endangered. The dilemma of how to guarantee individual rights at times of constitutional jeopardy is a pressing one and young democracies being more sensitive to such crises, offer a laboratory for designing and studying such responses in more mature democracies. The articles collected in this issue come from a conference organized on the topic of constitutional crises and human rights at the University of Chicago in May of 2017 with the help of
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Papers by E. Powell