This book compares the constitutional justice institutions in 16 West African states and analyses the diverse ways in which these institutions render justice and promote democratic development. There is no single best approach: different legal traditions tend to produce different design options. It also seeks to facilitate mutual learning and understanding among countries in the region, especially those with different legal systems, in efforts to frame a common West African system. The authors analyse a broad spectrum of issues related to constitutional justice institutions in West Africa. While navigating technical issues such as competence, composition, access, the status of judges, the authoritative power of these institutions and their relationship with other institutions, they also take a novel look at analogous institutions in pre-colonial Africa with similar functions, as well as the often-taboo subject of the control and accountability of these institutions.

Constitutional courts around the world play an increasingly central role in day-to-day democratic governance. Yet scholars have only recently begun to develop the interdisciplinary analysis needed to understand this shift in the relationship of constitutional law to politics. This edited volume brings together the leading scholars of constitutional law and politics to provide a comprehensive overview of judicial review, covering theories of its creation, mechanisms of its constraint, and its comparative applications, including theories of interpretation and doctrinal developments. This book serves as a single point of entry for legal scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the field of comparative judicial review in its broader political and social context.

Now in its second edition, this textbook presents a critical rethinking of the study of comparative law and legal theory in a globalising world, and proposes an alternative model. It highlights the inadequacies of current Western theoretical approaches in comparative law, international law, legal theory and jurisprudence, especially for studying Asian and African laws, arguing that they are too parochial and eurocentric to meet global challenges. Menski argues for combining modern natural law theories with positivist and socio-legal traditions, building an interactive, triangular concept of legal pluralism. Advocated as the fourth major approach to legal theory, this model is applied in analysing the historical and conceptual development of Hindu law, Muslim law, African laws and Chinese law.

This publication defines the nature and characteristics of traditional justice systems, including issues related to jurisdiction, community involvement, composition, and a primary focus on restorative justice.

This book fills a gap in constitutional law by examining the global trend towards the substantive constitutional adjudication of electoral legislation. It explores the premises on which this judicial scrutiny is grounded, seeks to explain the trend, and examines its consequences for representative democracy. The book offers a comparative analysis of the issue, investigating how the exchange of models and arguments among judges has catalysed the progressive departure from a traditionally deferential approach to electoral norms-an approach that still persists in a few jurisdictions. To accomplish this, the book delves into the democratic foundations of electoral systems and their evolution. It also explores the methodological choices that constitutional judges face when dealing with electoral legislation. This groundwork sets the stage for an in-depth review of case law in more than fifteen legal systems spanning North and South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Europe. The objective is to identify the underlying concept of democracy that courts aim to promote. The authors critically discuss the varying ideas of democracy evident in each jurisdiction, including the use of constitutional borrowing, and they analyse the effects of judgments on the relationship between courts, representative institutions, and voters. Given its global scope, the combination of theoretical and practical approaches, and the comprehensive comparative assessment it provides, this work is of interest to academics in the fields of law, political science, and philosophy. It is also relevant for policymakers and judges in constitutional democracies across continents.

This timely book is a crucial resource on the rich diversity of African constitutional law, making a significant contribution to the increasingly important field of comparative constitutional law from a historically understudied region. Offering an examination of substantive topics from multiple jurisdictions, it emphasises issues of local importance while also providing varied perspectives on common challenges across the continent.

Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country to which they belong. Statelessness and discriminatory citizenship practices underlie and exacerbate tensions in many regions of the continent, according to this report by the Open Society Institute. Citizenship Law in Africa is a comparative study by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project. It describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state, and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international legal norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalization, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It describes how stateless Africans are systematically exposed to human rights abuses: they can neither vote nor stand for public office; they cannot enroll their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government.--Publisher description.

In countries and supranational entities around the globe, constitutional reform has transferred an unprecedented amount of power from representative institutions to judiciaries. The constitutionalization of rights and the establishment of judicial review are widely believed to have benevolent and progressive origins, and significant redistributive, power-diffusing consequences. Ran Hirschl challenges this conventional wisdom. Drawing upon a comprehensive comparative inquiry into the political origins and legal consequences of the recent constitutional revolutions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa, Hirschl shows that the trend toward constitutionalization is hardly driven by politicians' genuine commitment to democracy, social justice, or universal rights. Rather, it is best understood as the product of a strategic interplay among hegemonic yet threatened political elites, influential economic stakeholders, and judicial leaders. This self-interested coalition of legal innovators determines the timing, extent, and nature of constitutional reforms. Hirschl demonstrates that whereas judicial empowerment through constitutionalization has a limited impact on advancing progressive notions of distributive justice, it has a transformative effect on political discourse. The global trend toward juristocracy, Hirschl argues, is part of a broader process whereby political and economic elites, while they profess support for democracy and sustained development, attempt to insulate policymaking from the vicissitudes of democratic politics.

Unlike many other countries, the United States has few constitutional guarantees of social welfare rights such as income, housing, or healthcare. In part this is because many Americans believe that the courts cannot possibly enforce such guarantees. However, recent innovations in constitutional design in other countries suggest that such rights can be judicially enforced--not by increasing the power of the courts but by decreasing it. In Weak Courts, Strong Rights, Mark Tushnet uses a comparative legal perspective to show how creating weaker forms of judicial review may actually allow for stronger social welfare rights under American constitutional law. Under "strong-form" judicial review, as in the United States, judicial interpretations of the constitution are binding on other branches of government. In contrast, "weak-form" review allows the legislature and executive to reject constitutional rulings by the judiciary--as long as they do so publicly. Tushnet describes how weak-form review works in Great Britain and Canada and discusses the extent to which legislatures can be expected to enforce constitutional norms on their own. With that background, he turns to social welfare rights, explaining the connection between the "state action" or "horizontal effect" doctrine and the enforcement of social welfare rights. Tushnet then draws together the analysis of weak-form review and that of social welfare rights, explaining how weak-form review could be used to enforce those rights. He demonstrates that there is a clear judicial path--not an insurmountable judicial hurdle--to better enforcement of constitutional social welfare rights.

This volume explores the issues and debates surrounding the ongoing processes of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, illuminating the central dynamics characterizing Africa’s democratic experiments, and considering the connections between democratization and economic, social, and cultural developments on the continent. Reflecting the diverse and rich nature of this field of study, the Handbook of Democratization in Africa features more than thirty contributions structured into six thematic sections: The politics and paths of regime development Institutional dynamics Political mobilization and voting dynamics The politics of identity Social forces from below The consequences of democracy. Chapters offer overviews of the key scholarship on particular topics, including central insights from the latest research, and provide suggestions for those interested in further inquiry. The material includes attention to broad cross-continental patterns, for example with respect to public opinion, political violence, or the role of different institutions and actors. It also includes rich case material, drawing on and highlighting the experiences of a diverse collection of countries. Encouraging a comprehensive view of key concerns and enhancing understanding of particular issues, the Handbook of Democratization in Africa represents a critical resource for experts and students of African politics, democratization, and African studies.