Suchergebnisse

The discussions at the Warsaw conference concerning socialist law had indicated to Western jurists that if the law is indissolubly linked to democracy, it can appear in various guises, & can differ in content from 1 democracy to another. If bourgeois law & socialist law have many points in common, esp in those aspects concerned with the connection of law to the rights of man & with the protection of subjective rights, there are still important diff's between the 2. These diff's have their origin in the econ & soc structure which provide the nature of rights, in the conception of civil rights & in the system of guarantees. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.

Law has hardly influenced the language problem in Switzerland; it merely recognized an existing situation when the gov admitted French, German & Italian as nat'l languages; in 1938, romansch was added, though it was not an official language. But plurilingualism is valid only on the federal level. In the cantons, the regional language prevails. Jurisprudence has decreed that all 3 languages are official; federal authorities speak in their own language, though only French & German are used in Assembly debates. Similarly, in the admin, bilingualism prevails. In differentiating nat'l from official languages, Switzerland wished to recognize the romansch community as an essential element of the state, having a certain autonomy, & which participates in federal life & respects certain rules in the linguistic relations among cantons. (See SA 1330-B4520 & B4523.) Tr & modified from IPSA by.

Majority rule has various applications. In parliamentary theory, it intervenes at the level of relations between assembly & gov, & again, in elections. We find it in democratic theory where the majority of the people must approve decisions of the constitutional organs. Finally, it is employed in the decisionmaking process of the assemblies, & it is this aspect which forms the object of the present study. Since antiquity the majority principle has been generally observed in the decisions of deliberating bodies; but it was not until the 16th cent that it triumphed in England & France. In Switzerland up to the 16th cent majority rule was in effect, disappeared for a while, & then reappeared after the transition from confederation to federation. In Holland, majority rule was applied with certain restrictions from the 16th cent on. Poland had the 'liberum veto' up to the beginning of the 19th cent. From a theoretical viewpoint, the jurists of the Middle Ages based their justification of majority rule on an old Roman adage, & Canon Law has also made an important contribution to this doctrine. The authors of the 18th cent elaborated a legal theory based on rational fictions & on the doctrine of the Social Contract in particular. Among the moderns, 3 principal schools can be distinguished: those who, with Duguit, give a utilitarian basis to the principle, those who see in it a sublimated power, particularly sociol'ts, & finally the theoreticians who accept the principle for ethical reasons. The problem has increased in importance with the existence of international org's where at present, the majority principle is applied only exceptionally. (Translated by Z. Dana from IPSA).