The Legal Boundaries of Liberty: Dicey, Liberalism and Legal Science (original) (raw)
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1996
Jurisprudence of liberty by Suri Ratnapala Free PDF d0wnl0ad, audio books, books to read, good books to read, cheap books, good books, online books, books online, book reviews epub, read books online, books to read online, online library, greatbooks to read, PDF best books to read, top books to read Jurisprudence of liberty by Suri Ratnapala books to read online.
The relationship that exists between the law and civil liberties has characterized the development of the same idea of freedom. Whilst in the civil law countries, during the XIX century, the law was considered as the principal means in order to protect the liberties that liberal revolutions had affirmed, in United States the congress was thought as the first menace for individual freedoms. These two approaches illustrate a more general issue: the protection of civil rights needs at the same time two different and potentially contradictory conditions: a) The Legislator must actively contribute and adopt regulations that define the individual circle of liberty; b) The constitutional system has to control the legislator in order to prevent him from passing legislation that curtails individual freedoms. These needs directly impact the drafting of constitutional provisions that protect liberties and lead its evolution through the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Tihs essay investigates this topic firstly through an analysis of the main theories that legal scholarship developed during the last two centuries on the relationship that exists between law and freedom. Secondly, it analyses constitutional drafting in order to examine the concrete relationship that exists between law and liberties in some relevant constitutional experience, from the U.S. Bill of Rights to the EU Charter of fundamental rights.
Law, Liberalism, and the Common Good
2004
There is a tendency in contemporary jurisprudence to regard political authority and, more particularly, legal intervention in human affairs as having no justification unless it can be defended by what I shall call the principle of modern liberal autonomy (MLA). According to this principle, if consenting adults want to do something, unless it does specific harm to others here and now, the law has no business intervening. Harm to the self and general harm to society can constitute no justification for legal regulation or prohibition. So pervasive is this understanding of legal intervention in human affairs, that it is common now to encounter arguments in favour of permissive laws on, for example, private drug use, pornography, and sexual and reproductive choice, based on the idea that to intervene in these areas would constitute a breach of the liberal ideal.
2014
Conservative constitutional jurisprudence in the United States has an important libertarian dimension. In recent years, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court has strengthened the constitutional protections for property rights, recognized an individual right to own firearms, imposed limits on the welfare state and the powers of the federal government, cut back on affirmative action, and held that closely held corporations have a right to religious liberty that permits them to deny contraceptive coverage to their female employees. This libertarian streak can also be seen in decisions on freedom of speech and association. In several leading cases, conservative judges have used the First Amendment in a libertarian manner to invalidate regulations that reflected liberal or progressive values. For example, these judges have rejected efforts to limit the role of money in election campaigns, struck down restrictions on hate speech and pornography, expanded protection for religious sp...
2008
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POLITICAL LIBERALISM, BASIC LIBERTIES, AND LEGAL PATERNALISM
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2010
This essay argues that neutral paternalism (NP) is problematic for antiperfectionist liberal theories. Section 2 raises textual evidence that Rawlsian liberalism does not oppose and may even support NP. In section 3, I cast doubt on whether NP should have a place in political liberalism by defending a partially comprehensive conception of the good I call "moral capacity at each moment," or MCEM, that is inconsistent with NP. I then explain why MCEM is a reasonable conception on Rawls's account of reasonableness. In section 4, I handle concerns that showing NP fails the test of Rawlsian public justification is a nonstarter since NP does not threaten any of our basic liberties. I sketch an argument that, if this is so, the burden is on political liberalism to defend its particular account of basic liberties, since MCEM is reasonable on Rawlsian grounds. More precisely, MCEM is a conception that challenges the way Rawls characterizes basic liberties; that is, his list of basic liberties should be more inclusive by political liberalism's own structural commitments, including Rawls's "liberal principle of legitimacy." On this revised account, political liberalism can mount a strong opposition to hard legal paternalism.s jp_1012 177..196