POLS 3210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Judicial Interpretation, Liberal Democracy
24 Jan 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Friday, January 11th, 2018
Lecture 1: Law and Judicial Process
Politics
- Power
- The government
- “Who gets what, when, and how?” - politics allows us to work out who governs, what
group of people get to rule over everyone.
- Distribute resources, decisions with consequences.
- Authoritative allocation of values (whose authority, is it legitimate?)
- Who is worthy of recognition?
- Politics is a study of how that conflict plays out
-Political Science - Interested in process and the output/outcomes from the state
-Process = who and how
-Outcomes = what
- Laws
- Winners/losers
-Relevance of courts: supposed to be neutral, have an interesting relationship to politics,
courts protecting rights in a recent development.
Courts in a Liberal Democracy
-Liberal (generous) Democracy: Generous in a specific institutional way, 2 political
principles brought together.
- Commitment to self-government
- Associated with limits to majority, checks on what the majority can get away
with. There are protections to minorities, laws when state can violate rights of
citizens.
-Liberal = “checks and balances”, “rights and freedoms”, i.e. limits on the state.
- In a pure democracy, 51% could vote to enslave other 49%.
- We often turn to the courts.
- Role of courts is recent innovation with liberal democracy. Courts were not
always the main institution that would ensure rights of minority were protected.
-English political tradition, Magna Carta 1205 (Law binds king too), limits
king’s power. Idea of juries and trials goes back to this.
-Glorious Revolution 1688 - One side said King should get final say, other side
said elective branch of government, the legislature, should get final say.
Parliamentary side won.
- Majority rule + rights protection = liberal democracy
Document Summary
Who gets what, when, and how? - politics allows us to work out who governs, what group of people get to rule over everyone. Authoritative allocation of values (whose authority, is it legitimate?) Politics is a study of how that conflict plays out. Political science - interested in process and the output/outcomes from the state. Relevance of courts: supposed to be neutral, have an interesting relationship to politics, courts protecting rights in a recent development. Liberal (generous) democracy: generous in a specific institutional way, 2 political principles brought together. Associated with limits to majority, checks on what the majority can get away with. There are protections to minorities, laws when state can violate rights of citizens. In a pure democracy, 51% could vote to enslave other 49%. Liberal = checks and balances , rights and freedoms , i. e. limits on the state. Role of courts is recent innovation with liberal democracy.
