Courts in Federal Countries: Federalists or Unitarists?

by Nicholas Theodore Aroney (Editor), John Kincaid (Editor)

Overview

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States.

The volume’s contributors analyse the centralizing or decentralizing forces at play following a court’s ruling on issues such as individual rights, economic affairs, social issues, and other matters. The thirteen substantive chapters have been written to facilitate comparability between the countries. Each chapter outlines a country’s federal system, explains the constitutional and institutional status of the court system, and discusses the high court’s jurisprudence in light of these features. Courts in Federal Countries offers insightful explanations of judicial behaviour in the world’s leading federations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487511487
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	04/24/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	600
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Nicholas Aroney is Professor of Constitutional Law in the School of Law at the University of Queensland.

John Kincaid is the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service as well as the Director of the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Foreword (Peter Russell)

1. Introduction: Courts in Federal Countries (Nicholas Aroney and John Kincaid)
2. The High Court of Australia: Textual Unitarism vs Structural Federalism (Nicholas Aroney)
3. The Constitutional Court of Belgium: Safeguard of the Autonomy of the Communities and Regions (Patrick Peeters and Jens Mosselmans)
4. The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil: Protecting Democracy and Centralized Power Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues, Marco Antonio Garcia Lopes Lorencini, and Augusto Zimmermann)
5. The Supreme Court of Canada: The Concept of Cooperative Federalism and its Effect on the Balance of Power (Eugénie Brouillet)
6. The Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia: Federalism’s Bystander (Gedion Hessebon and Abduletif K. Idris)
7. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany: Guardian of Unitarism and Federalism (Arthur Benz)
8. The Supreme Court of India: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Protection of Federalism (Manish Tewari and Rekha Saxena)
9. The Supreme Court of Mexico: Reconfiguring Federalism through Constitutional Adjudication and Amendment after Single-Party Rule (José Antonio Caballero Juárez)
10. The Supreme Court of Nigeria: An Embattled Judiciary More Centralist than Federalist (Rotimi T. Suberu)
11. The Constitutional Court of South Africa: Reinforcing An Hourglass System of Multilevel Government (Nico Steytler)
12. The Constitutional Court of Spain: From System Balancer to Polarizing Centralist (Elisenda Casanas Adam)
13. The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland: Judicial Balancing of Federalism without Judicial Review (Andreas Lienhard, Daniel Kettiger, Jacques Bühler, Loranne Mérillat, and Daniela Winkler)
14. The Supreme Court of the United States: Promoting Centralization More than State Autonomy (Ilya Somin)
15. Comparative Conclusions (Nicholas Aroney and John Kincaid)

What People are Saying About This

Cheryl Saunders

"In Courts in Federal Countries, Nicholas Aroney, John Kincaid, and the volume's contributors have produced well written, carefully referenced, and thoughtful work that is of a very high quality. The volume is a work of significant scholarship and the knowledge and insights it provides will open the doors to further research on the roles of courts in federalist countries."

G. Alan Tarr

"Courts in Federal Countries is the first volume to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of the role of courts in contemporary federal systems, and it sets a high standard both in the quality of the various case studies and in the range of important questions addressed. This book will be immediately recognized as the standard reference on the topic and will remain so for some time."

Editorial Reviews

" Courts in Federal Countries does something differently than other books on the topic of federal systems of government…Some works may compare one or two countries. This work looks at 13 countries."

—Daniel Perlin, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Canadian Law Library Review, vol 44 no 1

" Courts in Federal Countries is the first volume to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of the role of courts in contemporary federal systems, and it sets a high standard both in the quality of the various case studies and in the range of important questions addressed. This book will be immediately recognized as the standard reference on the topic and will remain so for some time."

—G. Alan Tarr, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University

"In Courts in Federal Countries, Nicholas Aroney, John Kincaid, and the volume’s contributors have produced well written, carefully referenced, and thoughtful work that is of a very high quality. The volume is a work of significant scholarship and the knowledge and insights it provides will open the doors to further research on the roles of courts in federalist countries."

—Cheryl Saunders, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

From the Publisher

"Courts in Federal Countries does something differently than other books on the topic of federal systems of government...Some works may compare one or two countries. This work looks at 13 countries."

Canadian Law Library Review, vol 44 no 1 - Daniel Perlin