Supreme Court's Interpretation Research Articles

자동차대여업자의 운행자성

The contents related to the operator's responsibility under the Automobile Accident Compensation Security Law are virtually the same from the time it was enacted as Law No. 1314 on April 4, 1963. Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court has no choice but to continue its attempts to embody abstract concepts as it extends the concept of existing operating profit and control to ideological concepts. Even if it is understood that it is in line with the legislative purpose of the Automobile Accident Compensation Security Law, it is questionable how long the Supreme Court's interpretation can keep pace with changes in society through technological development. In this judgment, it was questionable whether the vehicle rental company could recognize the driver's personality in the event of an accident due to the tenant's violation, even though the vehicle rental company had restrictions and exemption regulations on the operator of the vehicle as the content of the contract with the tenant. The Supreme Court judges the driver's management of car based on the concept of existing operating profit and operating control (two-way theory), but as the concept of existing operating profit and operating control is abstract, the conclusions of the lower court and the Supreme Court were different. In the end, if the abstract concept of existing operating profit and operation control leads to individual case judgments, there is a risk of reaching unreasonable conclusions in form, and there is a risk of differences in drawing conclusions according to the subjectivity of judges depending on individual cases. If so, it would be more purposeful to interpret the provisions of Article 3 of the Automobile Accident Compensation Security Law to judge the driver's personality based on the subjective sense of responsibility of the party based on an objectified third party.

법률행위의 해석

The main issue of the Supreme Court's ruling in this case was the recognition of the plaintiff's preliminary claim by reversely applying the legal principles of denial of legal personality to the defendant. The plaintiff's rights were recognized with difficulty. However, the claim for delivery of movable property under the 'Memorandum of Performance' that the Plaintiff had requested was dismissed on the grounds that it was not a title holder in the disposition document. The main basis for the decision to dismiss was the interpretation of legal acts based on indication that the existence and content of the expression of intention should be recognized as the text if the meaning of the text is objectively clear. Past discussions were conducted by dividing the goal of interpreting legal acts into expressing the parties' true intentions and expressing the objective meaning of the indicated text. However, currently, the types of legal acts are subdivided in various ways to set the goal of interpreting legal acts. In a similar way, precedents on the Supreme Court's interpretation of legal acts reveal the contents of legal acts by comprehensively considering the details of specific cases, the circumstances of the parties, and the laws applied to legal acts. The impact of Supreme Court precedents on the law and the people is very significant. In all cases, more careful and careful review is needed for the one-time dispute resolution of specific cases and the relief of the rights of the parties.

RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY

The concept of the Rule of Law, which describes how states are governed, has been around for millennia. Rule of Law entails that all institutions, including the government, must uphold the supremacy of the law as opposed to Rule by Law, which places the government above the law and uses the law to govern. One of the goals of this study is to show that the rule of law is essential to democracy and that solely caring about the rule of law during elections is insufficient to maintain democracy. The study aims to establish that the principles of democracy are strongly related to the Rule of Law. In addition to this, it establishes how philosophers from time to time have reiterated how the law is above the king. This study has also compared the modern concept of rule of law to the traditional theory and bursts the misconception that Parliament Sovereignty is above the Rule of Law. The paper also mentions a few landmark judgements which have set a great impact on society and have helped in limiting the powers of government. In India, no organization may assert ultimate authority. Parliament is sovereign to the extent that it enacts laws in accordance with clearly defined constitutional processes and according to procedural guidelines established by Parliament and state legislatures. The Constitution may only be amended by Parliament, subject to the procedural rules outlined in the document and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law. But the ability to change the Constitution's fundamental provisions is not included in that power.

Der Allgemeine Teil des neuen chinesischen Zivilgesetzbuchs im Vergleich zum deutschen BGB (Teil 1): Eine rechtswissenschaftliche und -terminologische Untersuchung der Rechtssubjektsregelungen

On 1 January 2021, the newly codified Civil Code (CC) came into effect in the People’s Republic of China, having been high on the political and legislative agenda in recent years and approved by the National People’s Congress on 28 May 2020. Since the founding of the People’s Republic (1949), numerous attempts have been made to codify its civil law. The CC is undoubtedly a landmark in China’s overall legal history, particularly with regard to civil law legislation, which, in contrast to the country’s long and turbulent history, had only begun in the late Qing Dynasty (1911). Preceding the enactment of the CCL, the General Part of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China, to which the CC’s General Part is basically identical, had already been adopted and enacted in 2017. With this step, China’s legislators succeeded in replacing the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China, which by then were already 31 years old, together with their supreme court interpretation, and finally set the course for the codification of the People’s Republic of China’s civil law. In view of the codificationhistorical and jurisprudential position of the CC’s General Part in China’s civil law and of the new codification as a whole, it is appropriate to present it to German-speaking and international legal experts, primarily in comparison with the General Part of the German Civil Code, which served or will serve as the most important foreign source of knowledge in the creation of the CC and in its application-related optimization. In this respect, this treatise, consisting of two parts, appreciates the renewal achievements of the CC’s General Part and examines its regulations in a comparative legal manner, focusing on the legal subjects, civil rights, legal transactions (including representation) and civil liability in terms of legal doctrine, technology and concepts.

Incidental Transactions Excluded from the VAT Pro Rata Calculation: The ECJ and the Italian Supreme Court Interpretations

The concept of incidental transactions exempt for VAT purposes has never been defined either by legislation or by jurisprudence. In this article, the authors analyse which factors the ECJ considers relevant for identifying the nature of incidental transactions in order to understand to what extent a recent decision of the Italian Supreme Court differs from the ECJ’s jurisprudence. The authors find that, even though the Italian jurisprudence borrows most of its arguments from the ECJ’s jurisprudence, the outcome seems not to be completely aligned with it.

Have Concrete Lessons Regarding General Elections Been Learnt Through Constitutional Theories and Interpretative Approaches Adopted by the Supreme Court of Ghana in the Landmarked Election Petition in 2013?

The Supreme Court being the highest court of Ghana is clothed with both appellate and original jurisdictions in the determination of cases that come before it. There are three main original jurisdictions of the Supreme Court-interpretation and enforcement of the provisions of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana; determination of classified documents and election petition for the election of the president. It is instructive to note that in the determination of all these areas of jurisdictions, the Supreme Court employs the various constitutional theories and approaches in order to arrive at just, transparent and forward looking results for the betterment of the country. It is against this backdrop that the Supreme Court was called upon by the New Patriotic Party in the 2013 Election Petition, to exercise its constitutional mandate to determine the propriety or otherwise of the election of the former President, John Dramani Mahama in the 2012 general elections of Ghana. To be able to effectively and efficiently carry out this mandate, the Supreme Court was enjoined to adopt the various constitutional theories and approaches- textualism, originalism, history and tradition, structure, precedents, philosophy or moral reasoning and purposivist, with the view to arriving at the most acceptable, transparent and uncompromising decision. Therefore, this paper seeks to unearth whether the decision arrived at by the Supreme Court in the 2013 Election Petition was actually in accordance with the appropriate application of the various constitutional theories and approaches and what lessons have been learnt therefrom so far with the view to making projections as to the necessity for the establishment of constitutional court in Ghana to solely concentrate on constitutional cases.

A Review of the Supreme Court's interpretation for Article 315-3 of Criminal Procedure Act and a Study on the Evidence of the Response Data of Korean Health Insurance Review and Asseeement service

A Review of the Supreme Court's interpretation for Article 315-3 of Criminal Procedure Act and a Study on the Evidence of the Response Data of Korean Health Insurance Review and Asseeement service

“Believe Me,” We Do Not Have a Foreign Emoluments Clause Violation

"Believe Me," We Do Not Have a Foreign Emoluments Clause Violation Scotty Nicole Teal Introduction An increasingly globalized world has brought a stronger need to protect the U.S. government from foreign corruption.1 With the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, this need has only expanded.2 Having elected a billionaire, reality star, real estate mogul, and international business owner3 as the leader of a world super power, the U.S. government can be vulnerable to negative foreign influence. The Framers of the constitution sought to protect the government from this type of problem by adding the Foreign Emoluments clause (Emoluments Clause) to the Constitution in 1787.4 President Trump was sued in New York District Court for allegedly violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause.5 In its brief, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)6 alleged that the [End Page 717] president's international businesses and real estate holdings positioned him to receive money from foreign governments.7 These business interests, or entanglements, could "sway"8 or create an opportunity for negative foreign influence in violation of the Emoluments Clause.9 CREW states that these "entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious threat to the Republic."10 CREW argued that President Trump violated the Emoluments Clause because the clause "cover[s] anything of value, monetary or nonmonetary."11 In defense of the president, the Department of Justice (DOJ) contended that the president had not received illegal emoluments because an Emoluments Clause violation occurs only when the president receives compensation or gifts from a foreign country because of his official duty as president.12 Neither of these emoluments definitions gets at the core of an Emoluments Clause violation. The Emoluments Clause, intended to prevent negative foreign influence in a globalizing world, acts as a builtin protection. It was created by the Framers to avoid the negative impact that foreign wealth could have on the U.S. government. This article argues that while foreign corruption in the form of payments to the president might be exactly what the Framers originally intended to avoid, President Trump is not violating the Emoluments Clause; President Trump's interests both domestically and globally that increase his wealth are not a violation of the clause. This article argues that because the world has become more globalized, any Emoluments Clause violation should occur only if there is a real possibility that the president will actually be influenced and engage in political action based on the potential for financial windfall. Thus, would a reasonable president in this situation actually be influenced to act in favor of foreign powers? Part II of this article explains the CREW case and the competing definitions of emoluments. Part III addresses the functionalist and [End Page 718] formalist approaches to constitutional interpretation and ultimately advocates for a functional approach to the Foreign Emoluments Clause.13 Part IV examines the clause's text and emoluments' meaning in a global world. Part V explores the Foreign Emoluments Clause's original intent. Part VI discusses the Supreme Court's interpretation of the clause. Part VII discusses past practices regarding the executive branch's interpretation. Finally, Part VIII discusses the clause's future implications and possible remedies. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, et al. v. Trump The U.S. people elected Donald J. Trump as president in 2016.14 Immediately, articles surfaced about possible Emoluments Clause violations.15 This culminated in a suit by CREW that alleged President Trump's personal ownership of the Trump Organization, including its interests in the united states and in twenty foreign countries, is a violation of that clause because ownership involves President Trump receiving money from foreign governments.16 In its complaint, CREW explained that President Trump "personally benefits from business dealings, and Defendant is and will be enriched by any business in which they engage with foreign governments and officials."17 First, because President Trump owns a massive business empire comprising of hotels, buildings, restaurants, and other real estate, he has daily opportunities to do business with foreign officials.18 Although the president has placed this organization in a trust, he still has universal access to...

Medicolegal Sidebar: Who Should Obtain Informed Consent?

Although consent for orthopaedic surgery is commonly obtained by physician assistants (PAs), a recent court ruling in Pennsylvania suggests that these consents may not be valid. In Shinal v Toms [11], the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the duty to get informed consent cannot be delegated by the physician. As a result, physicians practicing in Pennsylvania are legally required to adopt and discharge the duty of informed consent exclusively, without delegation to other healthcare providers such as PAs, advanced nurse practitioners, or residents. As a state Supreme Court interpretation of a legislative statute, the Shinal decision is authoritative and binding in Pennsylvania, and will be applied as substantive law by federal courts located in that state. While a handful of other state rulings have suggested that informed consent is the exclusive duty of the physician [10], to our knowledge, no other state or federal court has yet confronted the question of whether or not a physician can delegate the duty of informed consent to another professional as directly as the Shinal decision.

The Supreme Court's interpretation of the biosimilars statute and the value of certainty

The Supreme Court's decision in Sandoz v. Amgen introduces uncertainty into provisions that many viewed as necessary and enforceable, but its impact may ultimately be modest.

The Property Clause and Its Discontents: Lessons from the Malheur Occupation

The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by a group of armed militants led by Ammon Bundy during January 2016 spotlighted public land management to a largely oblivious American public. The militants’ month-long occupation was only the latest of several armed confrontations in recent years, one of them at Bundy’s father’s ranch in Nevada. What made the Malheur incident unusual were not only the length of the occupation but also the claims of the militants that their occupation was based on constitutional principles. We examine those claims in this article and find them meritless, wholly inconsistent with a long line of Supreme Court interpretations of the plenary federal power to manage federal public lands under the Property Clause. Although there is no justifiable legal case against federal ownership and management of public lands, the militants and their sympathizers may succeed in their efforts to divest federal land management in the political arena, epitomized by the 2016 Republican Party platform endorsing federal divestiture. Conveying federal lands to the states, as urged particularly by the state of Utah, however, would be a recipe for privatizing a common birthright of all Americans and inconsistent with moral, if not legal obligations to future generations.

Against Interpretive Supremacy

Many constitutional scholars are obsessed with judicial review and the many questions surrounding it. One perennial favorite is whether the Constitution even authorizes judicial review. Another is whether the other branches of the federal government must obey the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution and what, if anything, the other branches must do to execute the judiciary's judgments. Marbury v. Madison has been a full-employment program for many constitutional law scholars, including ourselves. Larry Kramer, the new Dean of Stanford Law School, shares this passion. He has devoted roughly the last decade of his career, with two lengthy law review articles and a half a dozen shorter pieces, to these questions. In these works, he has consistently advanced a two-pronged argument against judicial review and judicial supremacy. First, Kramer has claimed that while the Founders explicitly sanctioned judicial review of state constitutions and laws, they never intended courts to judge the constitutionality of federal legislation. Given the novelty and relative obscurity of judicial review in 1789, the Founders would never have authorized judicial review of federal statutes. Second, Kramer has insisted that rather than crowning the judiciary supreme in constitutional interpretation, the Constitution actually took for granted that the people were the final arbiters of the Constitution's meaning and that they would influence and discipline the federal branches through voting, petitioning, and mobbing. Kramer has pulled these arguments together, and in some places has extended them, in The People Themselves. His criticisms of the foundations of judicial review remain, but in more muted form. Whereas Kramer has, in the past, adamantly insisted that the Constitution's original understanding does not authorize judicial review, here he makes such comments much less frequently and only in passing, so much so that some readers may erroneously conclude that he has abandoned his earlier position. In toning down his claim, Kramer seems to have learned two lessons: first, that the argument against judicial review is a losing one (as we have argued, the Constitution's text contains numerous indications of judicial review's constitutionality and dozens of founders understood the Constitution to permit courts to review the constitutionality of federal statutes); and second, that the argument against judicial supremacy need not (and should not) rest on a futile assault on judicial review. The other elements of Kramer's argument - the rejection of judicial supremacy and the celebration of popular constitutionalism - remain pretty much as they were before. Though the arguments may be couched slightly differently and though Kramer exhumes more of the historical record, we do not believe that he has fundamentally altered his claims. For Kramer, the people themselves - not the courts - should decide the Constitution's meaning through the process of voting, petitioning, and mobbing. Below, we first consider Kramer's arguments in favor of popular constitutionalism and against judicial supremacy. As noted, we regard them as lacking sufficient rigor, making it unclear what he favors and opposes. Then we advance the argument in favor of judgment supremacy and against interpretive supremacy.

Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism for Ensuring Speedy Justice in India: A Conceptual Analysis and Legislative Framework

In a modern technologically and economically well advanced society, litigation is a primary means of resolving disputes. But, courts are clogged with cases and pendency is increasing every year in the subordinate courts. The reasons for the delay has been identified by high powered committee reports including Law commission of Indiaalso recommended changes in the procedural laws. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in plethora of cases identified the causes for the delay and at the recognised right to speedy justice as a fundamental right. Though the Supreme Court's interpretation of Article 21 was restricted to the applicability of right in all the stages of criminal cases, but not answered pertaining to extension of the right to civil cases. But, Article 21 is a uniform in ambit and extent i.e., any provision of law enshrined under any Act, which is not fair, just and reasonable, causes delay in the administration of justice, then it amounts to violation of right speedy justice. Though, the problem has been addressed from time to time and introduced necessary amendments in the procedural laws. Also measures such as establishing additional courts, use of court management systems, and use of ICT has been strengthened. But all these efforts has not been yielded considerable results and pendency is increasing throughout the country. Therefore, immediate, easy, inexpensive, fast justice is possible only by means of adopting alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. This paper examines the concept of ADR mechanisms, its development, and extent of application of the mechanisms to different categories of cases provided under various statutes along with the judicial reflections for proper implementation.

The Property Clause and its Discontents: Lessons from the Malheur Refuge Occupation

The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by a group of armed militants led by Ammon Bundy during January 2016 spotlighted public land management to a largely oblivious American public. The militants’ month-long occupation was only the latest of several armed confrontations in recent years, one of them at Bundy’s father’s ranch in Nevada. What made the Malheur incident unusual were not only the length of the occupation but also the claims of the militants that their occupation was based on constitutional principles. We examine those claims in this article and find them meritless, wholly inconsistent with a long line of Supreme Court interpretations of the plenary federal power to manage federal public lands under the Property Clause. Although there is no justifiable legal case against federal ownership and management of public lands, the militants and their sympathizers may succeed in their efforts to divest federal land management in the political arena, epitomized by the 2016 Republican Party platform endorsing federal divestiture. Conveying federal lands to the states, as urged particularly by the state of Utah, however, would be a recipe for privatizing a common birthright of all Americans and inconsistent with moral, if not legal obligations to future generations.

State Court Judges Are Not Bound by Nonoriginalist Supreme Court Interpretations

In this brief Essay, I provide a tentative argument for modest state court interpretative independence. I argue that state courts possess interpretative independence from nonoriginalist U.S. Supreme Court interpretations. I also argue that state courts must follow all U.S. Supreme Court judgments (within the Court's jurisdiction) and originalist Supreme Court opinions. I close by suggesting that this modest state court interpretative independence is likely to advance federalism’s three primary values.

Regulatory Takings Rights or Relations?

This Article uses tools from legal geography to investigate the Takings Clause, a provision in the U.S. constitution that prohibits the government from taking private property for public use without providing compensation. This area of law is gaining renewed attention from legal scholars given recent Supreme Court interpretations that evidence heightened doctrinal confusion in what was already a convoluted area of constitutional law. From a geographer’s perspective, the Court’s interpretations perform something more problematic — the challenge associated with employing the concept of “rights” in relation to the state’s capacity to occupy and police space. An examination of the Takings Clause demonstrates the problems associated with employing the concept of “property rights” and suggests that the concept of relations would perhaps be a more appropriate way to conceptualize interactions between cultural expectations, property owners, and the material world.

REVISITING THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS ADJUDICATION: THE NEED FOR A PRINCIPLED APPROACH TO JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND RESTRAINT

AbstractThe Indian Constitution embraces economic and social rights as directive principles of state policy, ostensibly insulated from judicial review. The Supreme Court's interpretation of traditional civil and political rights to include economic and social guarantees has been praised by academics and activists keen to advance the cause of justiciable economic and social rights. In recent commentary, however, the extent to which the court's jurisprudence furthers the goal of increasing access to goods such as health care, housing, food and water for India's poor, is questioned. This article reconsiders the court's record in this area. It suggests that a more realistic assessment of the court's jurisprudence is necessary and draws on the South African experience of economic and social rights adjudication to argue for more serious engagement with factors that inform the level of judicial activism or restraint applied in the cases.

Trends in Gun Law: The Changing Interpretation of the Second Amendment Over Time

The United States Constitution, and more specifically the amendments to the Constitution, are often erroneously considered to be archaic relics of an earlier time of our country; rules that, despite instilling fundamental rights, are static documents that are frozen in time. This ideology, however, is far from reality. Much like our country, the amendments are in a constant state of flux, ever-changing and evolving to fit the advancements and changing needs of society. Although the wording of these amendments does not change, the way in which they are interpreted does, sometimes quite far from what the framers’ intent may have been.As a general overview, in looking at the Supreme Court's interpretation of amendments over time, we can identify a shift instilling a greater emphasis on individual rights. When looking at the metamorphosis of interpretation of the Second Amendment since its inception in the English Bill of Rights, the cases of: Miller, Heller, and McDonald immediately spring to mind. The aim of this article will be to accurately spot and predict the direction in which gun laws will take. However, when making a prediction, we cannot simply look to the present and hope to gain a full understanding of the issue at hand; we must first look to understand the meaning and intent behind the object. By analyzing these cases and the history behind the Second Amendment, we will be better able to predict with some element of substantial certainty the future trends that gun law will take in the United States.The outcome of Heller was significant not only because of its holding, but in the questions of incorporation that arose from it. These very questions have provided the essence of cases such as McDonald, in which courts have begun to evaluate the constitutionality of individual states' regulations and statutes on the use and availability of firearms. The ability to spot trends in gun legislation will be of great importance in years ahead due to the upsurge in Second Amendment ligation that has crept, and will more prominently creep, into the courtroom post-McDonald. Despite these recent developments, the Supreme Court has yet to develop a standard that courts can use to rule in these state-by-state cases, a question that undoubtedly must be addressed in the near future. This article, not only will analyze these three aforementioned cases and predict future trends, but will address unanswered questions that these cases created. To particular, this article will address the empirical questions that arose from the holding of Heller and will provide probable standards that the courts will utilize in the near future to address them.

Commentary: Treatment for Prisoners: A U.S. Perspective

Commentary: Treatment for Prisoners: A U.S. Perspective

The Long Shadow of the Founding

The Long Shadow of the Founding Aziz Rana (bio) Luigi Marco Bassani . Liberty, State, and Union: The Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2010. 227 pp. Notes and index. $35.00. Eric T. Kasper . To Secure the Liberty of the People: James Madison's Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court's Interpretation. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010. x + 301 pp. Appendices, notes, table of cases, references, and index. $38.00. Alison L. LaCroix . The Ideological Origins of American Federalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. 312 pp. Notes, selected bibliography, acknowledgments, and index. $35.00. Two hundred plus years later, the Founding era and the personalities who dominated it continue to loom large over American legal and political life. Politicians across the ideological spectrum call on citizens to hold true to the values of the Founding Fathers. Popular biographies praising the wisdom and courage of the generation's key figures abound, emphasizing their skill in political creation and the importance of such wisdom for today's social order. A major school of constitutional interpretation, "originalism," argues that lawyers and judges should approach the federal Constitution primarily through the meaning that ratifiers and those early framers gave to it. In fact, all this is part of a political culture that, as Mark Tushnet has noted, presents the Revolutionary generation as composed of near mythic individuals, who bestowed contemporary Americans with a "perfect Constitution"—one infinitely flexible to address whatever problems we may now face.1 Thus, for citizens and scholars alike, the continuing political influence of the Founding era raises a series of critical questions. What in actuality is the country's institutional and ideological inheritance from the period? To what extent do the Founders offer Americans guidance for addressing contemporary legal and political concerns? Are the dilemmas and normative frameworks that shaped the early republic so distinct from present circumstances that the goal of producing a "usable" history obscures more than it illuminates? Three recent books implicitly and [End Page 42] explicitly engage these questions, revisiting the key events and personalities that shaped American independence and constitutional construction: Liberty, State, and Union by Luigi Marco Bassani; To Secure the Liberty of the People by Eric Kasper; and The Ideological Origins of American Federalism by Alison LaCroix. In Liberty, State, and Union, Luigi Bassani directly confronts what he views as New Deal liberalism's appropriation of Thomas Jefferson. According to Bassani, since the work of Vernon Parrington and Charles Wiltse in the 1930s, a line of Jefferson scholarship has maintained that the third president was a "protosocialist," critical of property rights and supportive of "intervention in the free economy" (p. 10). Bassani argues that not only does this "nonindividualistic, antiproperty Jefferson" misrepresent the actual beliefs of the man, it allows his iconic stature to be employed on behalf of purposes he would have found deeply suspect (p. 11). Outside the academy, the long-term consequence has been a left-leaning political tradition that links Jefferson to Roosevelt and views the "'marriage of Jefferson and Marx'" as not only coherent but as the heart of "democratic radicalism" in America (pp. 11, 216). For Bassani, it is this "view of democratic radicalism as the characterizing feature of Jeffersonian thought that is . . . a historiographical detour, whose enduring after effects must . . . be challenged by any scholar" (pp. 216-17). Bassani's self-conscious task is therefore twofold: historiographic and normative. While his primary goal is to recover Jefferson's true beliefs, he nonetheless hopes that, in the process, he can remove a powerful intellectual weapon on behalf of interventionist policies. He goes about these dual tasks by presenting the importance of natural rights theory in Jeffersonian thought. Bassani highlights how, for Jefferson, as he wrote to Samuel Kercheval, "the true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management" (quoted on p. 83). Property rights and land ownership were sacrosanct because they were central to individual autonomy and provided the necessary basis for a stable political order (not to mention a key check on an overweening government). As Bassani emphasizes, Jefferson's focus on property directly connected to his...