Bøger af Wojciech Sadurski

Rights Before Courts

How have national identities changed, developed and reacted in the wake of transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe? This book defines and examines various autonomous differences adopted at the state and the supranational level in the post-transitional phase of the post-Communist area.

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from both the Anglo-American and European traditions.

lt is a commonplace that law and morality intersect and interpenetrate in all the areas of legal decision-making; that in order to make sense of constitutional, statutory or common-law questions, judges and other legal decision-makers must first resolve certain philosophical issues which include moral judgments of right and wrang_ This is particularly evident with regard to constitutional interpretation, especially when constitutions give a mandate for the protection of the substantive norms and values entrenched as constitutional rights. In these Situations, as a leading contemporary legal philosopher observed, the "Constitution fuses legal and moral issues, by making the validity of a law depend on an answer to complex moral 1 problems". But the need for substantive value elucidation is not confined, of course, only to constitutional interpretation under Bills of Rights. This, however, immediately raises a dilemma stemming from the moral diversity and pluralism of modern liberal societies. How can law remain sensitive to this pluralism and yet provide clear answers to the problems which call for a legal resolution? Sharply conflicting values in modern societies clash in the debates over the death penalty, abortion, homosexuality, separation of state and religion, the scope of the freedom of the press, or affirmative action. lt would often be difficult to discern a broader consensus within which these clashes of values operate, unless this consensus were described in such vague terms as to render it practically meaningless.