Separation Of Powers Research Articles

Comparative Study Between the Omani and British Legal Systems in Terms of Judicial Independence and Separation of Powers

Abstract The legal system of Oman is a junction of the locally inherent religious legal norms and foreign influence of the French and British legal systems. The legal documents of the country, such as Constitution Articles 60 and 61, may claim that the judiciary is independent, yet the Omani experience within the executive branch, and its role in legislation, demonstrate that the Middle-Eastern state stands in contrast to the United Kingdom (UK), where the separation of powers (SOP) has been in effect since at least 1701. As is indicative of the common historical theme, considering the powers of the sultan, Oman may be said to be in need of popular participation through the parliamentary branches, for the creation of a regional prosecutorial body, and the enforcement of international judicial independence and conduct resolutions. Oman showed a positive response during the peaceful protests in 2011. Still, Oman may require national conferences to discuss such cases with popular participation.

Characteristics of local self-government development in Georgia

The article focuses on the fact that for decades, local governments in Georgia have not used theirsignificant reserves effectively. Local governments also lack a modern plan for the socio-economic development of territories. It should be noted that for the significant development of local self-government, the priority of different areas has not been determined. Problematic issues were resolved spontaneously without theparticipation of local residents, without coordination and reconciliation. Despite the numerous local reformsthat have been implemented since independence in Georgia, important issues such as the separation ofpowers between the center and self-government, lack of financial resources and assets, through decentralization, significant deficit competencies in the venture capital attraction, in the sense of self-governing competencies in securities issues and so on, remain unresolved.It is necessary as soon as possible to adopt the necessary laws that ensure the economic development of local governments, which will lead to the significant improvement of the social conditions of citizens.If the central government does not take quick effective steps in this direction, the socio-economic situation inthe self-government bodies of Georgia will deteriorate even more, which will jeopardize the country's financial and political stability.

A Separation-of-Powers Model of U.S. Chief Justice Opinion Assignment

I examine the quintessential member of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, in the context of the separation of powers (SOP). As the leader and public face of the Court, the chief is more likely than his colleagues to be cognizant of the institution's legitimacy. Chiefs also hold the important procedural power of assigning opinions when they are in the majority. Given these conditions, I argue that the SOP constrains chief justices’ opinion assignment decisions. Specifically, I find that chief justices are significantly less likely to assign opinions to their ideological allies when the Court faces increased institutional constraint or heightened public discontent. However, these SOP effects are conditioned on the decision authority of the case – they are only constraints in statutory cases. By linking the Court’s external strategic game (SOP) to its internal strategic game, this finding adds nuance of conditionality to the legitimacy-maintenance behavior of the Court and furthers scholars’ understanding of the goals and constraints that affect chief justices’ opinion assignment decisions.

Löwentattoos auf Streife?

Abstract Recently, there have been various conflicts with regard to extravagant or flashy body styling of applicants for police career, like conspicuous tattoos and piercings. The essay discusses the general requirements, which bear uponapplicants in the interest of public image cultivation, separation ofpowers in the light of basic rules. As Article 33 (5) of the Basic Law obligates the state to organize the public service according to traditional principles of German civil service, constitutional law offers a basis to justify interferences in private life, as far as the duties inherent in the servise as police officers require neutrality.

A Qualitative Study of the Separation of Powers in the Criminal Justice System of Kuwait

0

Separation of Powers in the Kuwaiti Criminal Justice System: A Case Study

0

Separation of Powers in the Kuwaiti Criminal Justice System: A Case Study

Discussions of the Separation of Powers (SOP) tend to be related to the administrative state, at the expense of the criminal state. This research addresses the question of separating powers within the criminal justice system of Kuwait, examining the function of this division and the structures that are designed to protect the rights of citizens. Despite being regulated according to democratic principles, the criminal justice system of Kuwait has been described as excessively controlled by executive bodies. Currently, there appears to be a lack of research explaining how numerous criminal justice bodies in Kuwait can effectively promote the principles of freedom, democracy, and equality before the law. The proposed research aims to provide insights into the SOP between institutions and to assess its effectiveness in addressing the principles stated in the Constitution of Kuwait. The origins of the modern Kuwaiti criminal justice system will also be explored, with a focus on British Jurisdiction (as a past influence) and French, Egyptian and Islamic law (as continuing influences). This development history makes Kuwait an excellent example of the diffusion of law, which, although it has been investigated widely, is still a topic of interest among modern researchers, alongside human rights and their protection through the criminal law system. This is one of the first studies to discuss the SOP in the Kuwaiti criminal justice system as a mixed phenomenon that can influence the protection of Kuwaiti citizens’ human rights at each stage of law enforcement and prosecution.

Impact of Corporate Governance on Non-Performing Loans of Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

This study examines the impact of Corporate Governance (CG) variables of Board Size (BS), Board Composition (BC), Composition of Audit Committee (CAC) and Power Separation (PS) on Non-performing Loans of Nigerian Deposit Money Banks; with a view to finding out whether these CG variable can be useful in curtailing the incidence of non-performing loans that have bedeviled Nigerian Money Deposit Banks. Secondary data was used from fourteen (14) quoted banks on Nigerian Stock Exchange from 2005-2011. Using multivariate regression analysis, the study finds that corporate governance variables of BS, BC, CAC and PS have no significant impact on non-performing loans of Nigerian Deposit Money Banks. Hence, the study concludes that BS, BC, CAC and PS cannot be relied upon to check the rising figure of non-performing loans of Nigerian Deposit Money Banks. Therefore, we recommend that the oversight and monitoring functions of Central Bank of Nigeria should be strengthened to ensure adherence to rules and principles guiding the approval and monitoring of loans and advances.

Tom Clark under Fire: The Consequences of Congressional Investigations of Supreme Court Justices

Tom Clark under Fire: The Consequences of Congressional Investigations of Supreme Court Justices CRAIG ALAN SMITH Introduction President Harry Truman’s nomination of Attorney General Tom Clark to the United States Supreme Court on August 2, 1949, following the unexpected death of Justice Frank Murphy, was regarded as a political appointment, one bom offriendship or loyalty rather than ability or stature. Though not a complete surprise—the Attorney General’s office was then regarded as a stepping-stone to the Court—news commentators expected Truman to choose a Catholic to replace the only Catholic Justice.1 When the United States Senate confirmed Clark’s nomination (73 to 8), Republicans cast all the “nay” votes. Opposition leader Homer Ferguson drew attention to numerous suspect instances while Clark served as Attorney General, but the most compelling reason for some Senators to vote against Clark was his failure to testify at his own confirmation hearing. Calling the nomination “transparently political,” Fergu­ son made no effort to hide his displeasure that Clark was not called for questioning, and when the Judiciary Committee approved Clark’s nomination (9 to 2) without inviting Clark to testify, the two “nay” votes princi­ pally protested his absence at the hearings. From the floor of the Senate, Robert Taft called Clark’s nomination “outrageous” because the Committee reported it favorably without Clark’s testimony.2 By the time of Clark’s nomination, a nominee’s personal appearance before the Judiciary Committee was not a wellestablished practice, but neither was it unprecedented. In 1925, Harlan Stone became the first Court nominee to testify, but the next five nominees were not invited. Not long after 140 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY President Franklin Roosevelt’s failed Court “packing” plan, the Committee heard from five successive nominees, including Attor­ neys General Frank Murphy and Robert H. Jackson. Clark’s nomination, on the other hand, followed five successive nominees who were not invited, thereby blunting Taft’s charges.3 The first and only nominee (to date) to refuse to testify was Appeals Court Judge Sherman Minton, who Truman nomi­ nated shortly after Clark following the unexpected death of Justice Wiley Rutledge. As a Senator, Minton had defended Roose­ velt’s Court “packing” plan, but, as a nominee, Minton refused to testify based upon the separation ofpowers,4 a view Clark later adopted when Congress sought testimo­ ny about his work as Attorney General. Whether Clark should testify or whether he could refuse once he was on the Court became increasingly contentious for the next four years. Clark’s absence at his confirmation hearings did not halt further inquiry into his Justices Felix Frankfurter and Stanley F. Reed appeared as character witnesses at the first perjury trial of Alger Hiss (above), a former State Department employee suspected of spying for the Soviets and accused of lying in his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Frankfurter and Reed were subpoenaed to testify, but some news accounts reported that their trial appearances were voluntary, leading to congressional proposals prohibiting Supreme Court Justices from serving as character witnesses. Justice Department service. He was subjected to incessant probing by congressional com­ mittees investigating old Justice Department cases. It is doubtful any sitting Justice faced such protracted investigations oftheir off-thebench record until the failed 1968 nomination of Abe Fortas for Chief Justice and his subsequent resignation eight months later. Tom Clark endured threats ofimpeachment or requests for his resignation, demands for his testimony, and intense public scrutiny of his conduct as Attorney General. This essay examines congressional efforts to compel Clark to testify and whether his refusal based on the separation ofpowers was convincing. It highlights news coverage of these investiga­ tions and compares it to secondary historical scholarship, much of which overlooked Clark’s part in Truman administration scan­ dals or their implications for future congres­ sional inquiries of sitting Justices. On several occasions congressional committees consid­ ered or expected Clark’s testimony on matters unrelated to his judicial duties, and each time Clark avoided appearing before lawmakers. Historical circumstances made it possible for Clark to maintain the separation of powers, but questions over whether Congress could compel a Justice’s testimony or whether a...

Designing Tests of the Supreme Court and the Separation of Powers

While rational choice models of Supreme Court decisionmaking have enhanced our appreciation for the separation of powers built into the Madisonian Constitutional design, convincing empirical support for a Separation-of-Powers (SOP) constraint on justices’ behavior has been elusive. We apply a standard spatial voting model to identify circumstances in which Attitudinalist and SOP predictions about justices’ behavior diverge. Our reconsideration of the theory indicates that prior efforts to test quantitatively the two models have failed to select out cases for which the two models’ predictions do not differ. While our more focused test offers a fairer test of the SOP constraint, the results strongly reject the SOP model. Nonetheless, our analysis provides leverage on this issue by: (1) delineating and executing necessary research design protocols for crafting a critical test of the SOP model; and (2) rejecting the two exogenously fixed alternative SOP models and suggesting avenues for future research.

Introduction

Introduction Melvin I. Urofsky Those of us responsible for the contents ofthe Journal ofSupreme Court History have learned, much to ourjoy, that there appears to be no real limit on what can legitimately come within the stated parameters of our mission— namely, to chronicle the history ofthe Supreme Court of the United States. We do not, of course, run articles of doctrinal analysis, con­ sidering that area to be the purview of the law reviews. Clearly, some doctrinal analysis is necessary when dealing with a court, but our rule is that the historical aspects take prece­ dence to the doctrinal, always aware that the two cannot be easily separated. In making our selections, I am often re­ minded of that wonderful quote from the leg­ endary Harvard law teacher, Thomas Reed Powell: “Ifyou think that you can think about a thing, inextricably attached to something else, without thinking of the thing it is attached to, then you have a legal mind.” Those ofus at the Journal do have to think about connections. In that way, at least, perhaps we can distinguish between the legal and the editorial minds. This issue of the Journal once again ranges across a wide spectrum of topics. Jus­ tice Sandra Day O’Connor gave the annual lec­ ture at the Society’s meeting last June, and her topic is of great importance to students of the Court. Certainly no Chief Justice since John Marshall was as concerned about the Court speaking with one voice as William Howard Taft, a man once dismissed as inconsequential but who has been greatly redeemed by newer scholarship that emphasizes his real skills at leadership on the bench. We have other articles in this issue on Jus­ tices, and this gives me a great deal of satis­ faction, since I have spent much of my pro­ fessional life dealing with biography. John D. Fassett, once a clerk to Justice Stanley Reed, writes about the rather bizarre relationship be­ tween his Justice and that great proselytizer, Felix Frankfurter. What is interesting is that many new Justices, once they had been as­ saulted by Frankfurter, wanted as little as pos­ sible to do with him. But Reed seems to have taken it all in stride, and aside from Robert v vi JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY H. Jackson, may have had the best relationship with Frankfurter ofanyone on the Court at that time. My article derives from a talk I was in­ vited to give at the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington. I am grateful to the organizers for getting me to rethink some of the issues involved in that appointment. Separation ofpowers is, ofcourse, one of the favorite topics of teachers of both law and political science, but what happens when past or future Presidents appear as attorneys before the high court? And how well do they do? Allen Sharp’s interest in this question led him to do the research, and we are glad to publish the results. The remaining two articles, Michael J. C. Taylor’s on Ableman v. Booth and Scott E. Lemieux’s on Marbury v. Madison, bring me back to my original comments on doctrinal analysis and history. In both of these cases, any effort to study the doctrine outside the con­ text of history—or vice versa—is clearly use­ less. History and doctrine walk hand in hand through great cases, as they do through the pages of this Journal. ...

Judicial Review in State Supreme Courts: A Comparative Study. By Laura Langer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 192p. $62.50 cloth, $20.95 paper.

Interest in strategic approaches to an understanding of judicial decision making, including the implications of the separation of powers (SOP), has grown dramatically in recent years. Unfortunately, almost all the research on these SOP interactions has been limited to those involving the U.S. Supreme Court. Laura Langer's book provides a refreshing alternative to the exclusive Supreme Court focus by examining the significance of separation of powers concerns for the exercise of judicial review by state supreme courts.