The Legitimacy of Highest Courts' Rulings - Judicial Deliberations and Beyond

In Judicial Deliberations: A Comparative Analysis of Judicial Transparency and Legitimacy (2004), the American-French scholar Mitchel Lasser has, among other things, tried to re-establish the strengths of the French cassation system. Using Lasser's approach and ideas as a starting point for this book, judges from the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts reflect on the challenges that their Courts are facing. Specific attention is also given to the Strasbourg Court on Human Rights, that has been so important for the moral legitimacy of the European legal order, and to courts in post-communist systems, which face many similar challenges and are under even greater pressure to modernise. The book is a multidisciplinary contribution to the international debate about the legitimacy of highest courts' rulings, the concept of judicial leadership, and offers a new perspective in the USA-versus-Europe debate.

List of contents

Introduction: from Legitimacy to Leadership.- The Comparative Enterprise.- Transforming Deliberations.- What Do We Lack?.- A Socio-Legal Analysis of The Legitimacy of Highest Courts.- Comparing Judicial Reasoning on a Formalism/Policy Axis: Problematizing and Contextualizing 'Formalism' in Mitchel Lasser's judicial Deliberations.- 'In Good Faith': Re-Imagining Comparative Law Discourse.- Formal and Substantial Justification in Legal Decisions: Some Critical Questions From an Argumentative Perspective.- The Subtleties of the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts.- 8 Formal and Informal Determinative Factors in the Legitimacy of Judicial Decisions: The Point of View of the French Court of Cassation.- But Pasteur Was French: Comments on Mitchel Lasser's 'the European Pasteurization of French Law'.- Filtering Applications, Number of Judgments Delivered and Judicial Discourse by Supreme Courts: Some Thoughts Based on the French Example.- A Commentary on Lasser'S Analysis From the Belgian Court of Cassation's Perspective.- Legitimacy and Democracy Through Adjudication: Comparative Reflections on the Argumentative Practice of the French and Belgian cour de Cassation.- Judicial Reasoning and Legitimacy of the Dutch Supreme Court.- the Legitimacy of The Decisions of the Dutch Supreme Court in Criminal Cases.- The Perspective of the Annotator: Some Observations About the Organisation and Format of the Judgments and Decisions of the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, and the Role of the Annotator.- 16 The Perspective of a Cassation Attorney in Criminal Cases.- Legitimacy of the Ruling: A Formal Approach.- Challenges to the Legitimacy of Courts.- Courts in a Quest for Legitimacy: A Comparative Approach.- Another Turn of the Screw: An Evaluation of Lasser'S judicial Deliberations in the Light of the Practices of Constitutional Review in France, Germany and the United States.- From Traditional Judicial Styles to Verdict Industries Inc..- A Comparison Between Wrongful Dismissal Cases in the Netherlands and California: A Quest for Transparency of Judicial Decisions.- The Dutch Supreme Court Versus the Lower Courts: Summary Dismissal and the Catalogue of Viewpoints.- Functions of Judicial Opinion: A View from a Post-Communist European State.- The ECtHR and its Peculiar 'Problematic'.- Judicial Deliberations: the Strasbourg Perspective.- Judicial Legitimacy in an Internationalized World.- Judicial Deliberations in the European Court of Human Righs.- Legitimacy of European Court of Human Rights Judgments: Procedural Aspects.- Judicial Deliberations, Legitimacy and Human Rights Adjudication.

About the author

Nick Huls holds the Chair for socio-legal studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University. He is program leader of the interdisciplinary research group in the field of the judiciary at Erasmus University, and an expert in the field of consumer bankruptcy, legal aid and regulation. Maurice Adams is professor of law at the University of Antwerp, professor of law at Tilburg University and part-time professor of comparative law at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on issues of regulation and the relationship between law and politics. He has written extensively on the regulation of euthanasia, and on law and democracy. Jacco Bomhoff is a lecturer at the Law Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science. His main research interest is in 20th century legal intellectual history, in particular in the areas of comparative law and conflict of laws.

Summary

In his Judicial Deliberations: A Comparative Analysis of Judicial Transparency and Legitimacy (Oxford 2004), the American-French scholar Mitchel Lasser has, among other things, tried to re-establish the strengths of the French cassation system.

Using Lasser's approach and ideas as a starting point, in this book judges from the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts reflect on the challenges that their Courts are facing. The book also contains a series of contributions from scholars analyzing the wide range of factors that determine the legitimacy of these courts’ decisions. Specific attention is given to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights that has been so important for the moral legitimacy of the European legal order, and to courts in post-communist systems, which face many similar challenges and are even under greater pressure to modernize.

The book is a multidisciplinary contribution to the international debate aboutthe legitimacy of the highest courts’ rulings as well as the concept of judicial leadership and offers a new perspective in the USA versus Europe debate. It is recommended reading for academics, judges, policymakers, political scientists and students.

Nick Huls is a Professor of socio-legal studies at the Faculty of Law of the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University’s Faculty of Law, The Netherlands. Maurice Adams is a Professor of law at Tilburg University, The Netherlands, and part-time Professor of comparative law at Antwerp University in Belgium. JaccoBomhoff is a Lecturer in law at the Law Department of the London School of Economics in the UK.

Product details

• Assisted by: Maurice Adams (Editor), Jacc Bomhoff (Editor), Jacco Bomhoff (Editor), Nick Huls (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2010
• EAN: 9789067042895
• ISBN: 978-90-6704-289-5
• No. of pages: 500
• Weight: 925 g
• Illustrations: 500p.
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Law > International law, foreign law; Rechtsvergleichung, LAW / Courts, Legal Reference / Law Profession, LAW / Comparative