Essays on Constitutional Law

Introduction

Marriage is the central issue of the family relations. The people of different religions, status and nationality enter into marriage in order to create valuable element of the society. For significant amount of people, the marriage plays crucial role in the further establishment of the priorities for living. Hence, the marriage can not be regarded as the trivial issue due to the consequences it causes. Besides, the current state of the globalization of the society and ongoing changes of the moral values have resulted into appearance of new social institutions as same-sex marriage. In fact, there are extremely opposing ...

12 Questions 1 - Environmental law is the set of laws and treaties which governs the limits to which the human actions affects the environment around us. We need environmental law because without it the worsening situation of our earth cannot be controlled and the state of our environment will worsen even more than the current state. Environmental lawyers are needed to uphold the environmental laws so that the prosecutors can be brought in front of the law and served the rightful justice. 2 - The environmental law was first formed in the year 1970. The section which is ...

The principle of separation of powers is one of the oldest at common law, having been enunciated by John Locke in his Constitutional theory. In his treatise, Civil Government, he argued that it would be a wrong for the same person to have law making powers and the powers to execute the same law. According to him, such powers were vested in the same institution or group of persons, there would be a great temptation of such individuals to use such powers to their own benefit and also to exempt themselves from their application. This principle was later modified ...

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Under the ACA, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is authorized to promulgate regulations on the kinds of contraceptives and family planning services that should be covered under certain employer-based health plans. Previously, HHS exempted a broad class of religious institutions (e.g. churches, religious orders, and their integrated auxiliaries) and not-for-profit organizations. Eventually, HHS concluded that any contraceptive approved by the FDA should be covered. Under the contraceptive mandate, any company not in compliance is subject to a penalty of $100 per ...

Introduction

Parliamentary sovereignty is one of the most sensitive subjects on the United Kingdom legal and political agendas. Since the monarch of the country was made subordinate under the United Kingdom unwritten constitution, numerous questions regarding the ability of Parliament to adopt the acts of supreme legal force has been regularly contested. In particular, there is a strong division among the UK legal scholars in this regard. While the first group strongly believes that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is not confined by anything and anyone, others are the staunchest advocates of the idea that the Parliament’s powers ...

On January 21, 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations had equal rights as individual citizens with regard to campaign contributions during political elections. This therefore implies that corporations also enjoy the protection of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights (Freedom of Speech). The court case was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Levin-Waldman, 2011, 178). The above reaction to the court decision is from the liberal side and I agree. I think that the decision was not good and not respectful of the rights of citizens. Democracy is no longer powerful when campaign elections can ...

Describe how the three branches of criminal justice operate as a cohesive system by analyzing their collaboration and communication practices.

The American criminal justice system has three branches, each of which has its own role to play in the criminal justice system as a whole (Gerstenfeld, 2006). Without each branch of the criminal justice system working properly, the criminal justice system would fall apart—each part of the system plays its role, while simultaneously giving power and legitimacy to the other branches of the system (Gerstenfeld, 2006). To function properly, however, each branch must be able to collaborate with the other branches and ensure agreement. The first line of defense in the criminal justice system is law enforcement (Gerstenfeld, ...

H.L.A Hart. “There are two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system's ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.” Laws are systems that may prohibit individuals to carry out a variety of actions or that may compel an assortment of responsibilities on persons. ...

One of the cornerstones of the UK Constitution is parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty makes the UK parliament the supreme legal authority in the country that is charged with the role of creating or ending laws. The parliament sovereignty doctrine has stood for a considerable period in the UK constitution. Although it has managed to stand solidly, some constitutional developments have, however affected this sovereignty. The parliament has itself passed some laws that have limited the application of this principle. These laws have been a reflection of the political developments both within and outside the United Kingdom. The aim of this paper ...

Arunabha Banerjee

Senior Associate, Corporate & Compliance Solutions, Thomson Reuters Abstract This article proposes to compare the reigns of Chief Justice Earl Warren and William Rehnquist, two stalwarts of the Federal Supreme Court, in influencing civil rights protection jurisprudence in the history of American Constitutional law. After individually addressing key aspects of their respective tenures, the article delves into a comparative analysis and examines recent trends in protection of civil liberties in light of past developments and future prospects. Keywords: Supreme Court, Warren, Rehnquist, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, Constitution, National Security

Introduction

The Federal Supreme Court in the United States of ...

Law 4900

4:10 pm Introduction In the United States (US), the judiciary holds the authority to conduct constitutional decision-making, in which they interpret the US Constitution accordingly whenever they confront specific cases that involve its provisions. There are at least three approaches to constitutional decision-making: originalism, living constitutionalism and minimalism. Each of the three approaches of constitutional decision-making have different ideological bases – originalism deems the meaning and intent of the framers of the US Constitution as important, living constitutionalism takes into consideration the various societal changes and minimalism emphasizes the importance of case-specific interpretations, being perhaps the most moderate ...

Law

Cerar (2010, p.4) “stated that it is an imminent characteristic of every law that it is also the means of certain politics”. It bears to stress, however, that law cannot be considered as a pure form through which the political content may be achieved since it is in the very nature of law to become independent or autonomous since it can stand on its own. However, in the case of politics, it cannot exist without the law for it is the law which gives its structure and maintains it within certain limits that are dictated by the concepts of justice ...

Background

The Supreme Court ruled against the constitutional law that defined certain forms of abortion as illegal, thereby, legalizing them in this 2000 landmark case (Baldwin, 1). “Partial birth” is a form of abortion where a physician delivers a fetus vaginally before killing it, or the intentional vaginal delivery of a live unborn before killing the fetus, according to the statute. However, the Nebraska law defines partial birth a set of procedures employed by a physician to perform third trimester abortions. The case involved a specialist physician in late abortions, Leroy Carhart against the Attorney general of Nebraska seeking to reverse the statute against partial birth citing ...

Edinburgh, Scotland: Canongate Books, 2007

Summary The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream is a book that can be categorized as an autobiography of the first African American president in the history of the United States. This book that was written and released shortly before announcing his presidential bid, the then Illinois senator’s second book addresses a collection of topics, which was considered by several political analysts as a means of paving way for himself in the looming presidential campaigns of that time. In this book, the author gives a detailed account of his journey through politics: he explains the driving forces behind ...

There are different systems of government in use all over the world. The presidential system also called the congressional system is basically a republican system where the head of state who is also the head of government leads an executive branch that is independent and different from a legislative branch. Often titled “president”, the executive cannot dismiss the legislature under any circumstances since it is not responsible to it. Arguably, presidential systems are diverse and numerous and there are laws governing them (Rosenfeld 45). The president who is also the head of state has a fixed term of office by law and ...

Facts and briefs on this case

Feiner, who is the is the defendant in this case is convicted of a misdemeanor, a disorderly conduct under the laws of the State of New York, which is the plaintiff in this case. His arrest follows making remarks the court considers derogatory while addressing both Caucasian and black Americans. The court translates this to imply incitement of the audience to rise against the whites and fight for their rights. Police offers deployed to the scene unsuccessfully stops him from making such speech. Feiner Irving holds a sidewalk gathering speech briefing to invite the audience to attend a meeting at the corner ...

Introduction

Justice John Marshal, the 4th chief justice in the United States court opinions was crucial in laying the basis for the American constitutional law. His court opinions made the United States Supreme Court a coequal branch of the government along with executive and legislative branches. He is regarded as a longest serving chief justice. He actually dominated the US court for more than three decades. His significant role in developing the American legal system cannot in fact be underestimated. Most remarkably, Justice Marshall reinforced the leading principle that the American federal courts are compelled to employ judicial review through disregarding ...

Question a (1)

The first amendment of American constitution guarantee its citizens the right to freely participate in their religion., the same constitution also forbid the government from approving a law that favors particular religion, setting up a command of severance of the state and church (Stephens, & Scheb p. 408). The first right give individuals the freedom to practice and enjoy their religion at liberty with no interference. The American Supreme Court has struck down all legislations that restrain its citizens from participating in their religion. The American court held that it is unconstitutional for Amish children to attend schools till the eighth grade ...

Civil Rights and civil liberties date back to the year 1791 in the United States of America (Bean, 2009). It was during this year that the first amendment to the bill of rights was made. Fifty seven years down the line, a movement was in place representing the civil liberties. This was the civil rights movement. The civil right and liberties have undergone various changes over the years following the many constitutional amendments as well as the dynamics of the federal mandate. Differentiating between civil rights and the civil liberties has been an uphill task to the elite as well ...

God save this honorable court: How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our History is acclaimed book, written by Laurence Henry Tribe, a Harvard law school professor of constitutional law and US Supreme Court barrister who has been associated with the field of law for a long time. Laurence Tribe is an eminent scholar of constitutional law who has authored luminous books on the subject and has been appeared a number of times before the Supreme Court in renowned cases. One thing which is observable in his writings is that he does not write as scholar but he writes as a lawyer ...

Question 1

The role of a grand jury is to decide whether or not to indict a suspect after listening to the prosecutor’s witnesses as well as a statement of the alleged crime from the prosecutor. A petit jury on the other hand comes after the grand jury has charged the suspect and taken him to trial where the petit jury decides on whether the suspect, now the defendant, is guilty or not of the charges brought against them (Erwin, 2009, p. 81).

Question 2

Original jurisdiction is when a court hears a case for the first time like during a trial. The appellate jurisdiction is the power ...

Before the UCC and UCITA what was one of the first and major significant of the US government attempt to promote uniformity in commerce.

The primary aim of the interstate commerce Act of 1987 was to regulate the railroad (‘’The interstate commerce Act of 1987’’ 2008) The 1887 Act was launched purposely to prohibit railroads from permeating state boundaries since UCC and UCITA employed different concepts. For instance UCITA is aligned with matters related to computer, something that acquired relevance towards the end of twenty century. Different conditions present at the particular juncture in history have made these laws ...