Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View

Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View
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The Supreme Court is one of the most extraordinary institutions in our system of government. Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution, the nine unelected justices of the Court have the awesome power to strike down laws enacted by our elected representatives. Why does the public accept the Courtâ€™s decisions as legitimate and follow them, even when those decisions are highly unpopular? What must the Court do to maintain the publicâ€™s faith? How can the Court help make our democracy work? These are the questions that Justice Stephen Breyer tackles in this groundbreaking book.

Today we assume that when the Court rules, the public will obey. But Breyer declares that we cannot take the publicâ€™s confidence in the Court for granted. He reminds us that at various moments in our history, the Courtâ€™s decisions were disobeyed or ignored. And through investigations of past cases, concerning the Cherokee Indians, slavery, and Brown v. Board of Education, he brilliantly captures the stepsâ€”and the misstepsâ€”the Court took on the road to establishing its legitimacy as the guardian of the Constitution.

Justice Breyer discusses what the Court must do going forward to maintain thatÂ public confidence and argues for interpreting the Constitution in a way that works in practice.Â He forcefully rejects competing approaches that look exclusively to the Constitutionâ€™s text or to the eighteenth-century views of the framers. Instead, he advocates a pragmatic approach that applies unchanging constitutional values to ever-changing circumstancesâ€”an approach that will best demonstrate to the public that the Constitution continues to serve us well. The Court, he believes, must also respect the roles that other actorsâ€”such as the president, Congress, administrative agencies, and the statesâ€”play in our democracy, and he emphasizes the Courtâ€™s obligation to build cooperative relationships with them.

Finally, Justice Breyer examines the Courtâ€™s recent decisions concerning the detainees held at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, contrasting these decisions with rulings concerning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. He uses these cases to show how the Court can promote workable government by respecting the roles of other constitutional actors without compromising constitutional principles.

Making Our Democracy Work is a tour de force of history and philosophy, offering an original approach to interpreting the Constitution that judges, lawyers, and scholars will look to for many years to come. And it further establishes Justice Breyer as one of the Courtâ€™s greatest intellectuals and a leading legal voice of our time.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 0307269914_Good
ReleaseDate 2010-09-14
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780307269911

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Knopf
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	0307269914_Good
ReleaseDate	2010-09-14
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780307269911

Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View

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