Suchergebnisse

It is axiomatic that some supreme courts are more influential than others. A dictum by one judge may carry more weight than a decision by another. Anyone who has studied the opinions of our highest courts is constantly assigning values to them, and the combination of these impressions may determine the relative standing of these tribunals for that individual. That this process of appreciation or depreciation is usually unconscious, and frequently irrational, does not make the prestige which results from it any less real or less potent a factor.

Early in 1931, General Jorge Ubico Castaneda established in Guatemala one of the tightest dictatorships in all Latin America. For many years, his régime was not only popular, but benevolent. General Ubico loved his country, and under his leadership there was a remarkable increase alike in administrative efficiency and public honesty. Under the Ley de Probidad, one of his first statutes, every important government official from the president down was required to file a sworn statement upon assuming office of all property owned by him and by his immediate family, to serve as the possible basis of an accounting on termination of his services. Government employees receiving funds were required to give a receipt, made out in duplicate upon official blanks that must be accounted for, upon pain of a fine amounting to twice the amount involved, one-half of which was to be paid to the informer. No one could tell when General Ubico would "drop in" on him to audit his books and examine his papers, as he could reach even the most out-of-the-way government offices on his motorcycle. Indeed, "government by motorcycle" became a popular phrase of the day in reference to this rugged and domineering personality.Although the constitution provided in Article 66 that the presidential term of office should be six years, and that no president should be reelected until he had been out of office for at least twelve years, a subservient Congress that had virtually abandoned its legislative powers to the executive called for a national plebiscite on extending General Ubico's term, and following a favorable vote the constitution was amended to provide that he should continue as president until March 15, 1943, Article 66 remaining in suspense until that date. Late in 1941; the constitution was again amended to extend his term another six years.

As evidenced by the increasing numbers of court decisions which involve statutes,' and by the large and continually growing literature in the field, the subject of statutory interpretation is one of the most important in modern law. Although it is a field in which exact rules of automatic application can very seldom be formulated, only recently a member of the Supreme Court pointed out the great need for a set of "consistently accepted principles of interpretation." Since the primary purpose of all statutory interpretation is to ascertain the meaning and to effectuate the purposes of the legislature, and since words are merely symbols without inherent meaning, every statute upon which a court is required to rule must, in some sense, be construed and interpreted.

"Reprinted in the Congressional record for February 15, 1937, p. 1495." ; Cover title. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; With this are bound the author's: Nature of the amending process, 1938; They all come out!, 1938; Preserving democracy, 1938; Progress of plan for judicial reform, 1937; We can prevent crime, 1938; The right arm of statesmanship, 1937; A rounded system of judicial rule-making, 1938; Americas [sic] compact with liberty, 1938; Stenographic report of an address . in honor of the Right Honorable Lord Macmillan, 1938; Modernizing federal procedure, 1938.

On April 6,1923, the Ohio legislature passed an act creating a Judicial Council charged with making a continuous study of the organization, rules, and methods of practice of the courts of that state, the work accomplished, and the results produced by the judicial system and its various parts. Hampered by a lack of funds during its first years of life, this body seemed destined to languish and waste away. In 1929, however, all was changed, for in that year the Council succeeded in arranging with the Institute of Law of the Johns Hopkins University for a three-year study of judicial administration in Ohio. This survey, which represented the first of a series of state-wide studies of "law-in-action" contemplated by the Institute of Law, proposed not only to organize technical research in connection with the actual operation of the courts, but to go beyond this and look into causes and effects of law administration in the social process. More specifically, it proposed, among other things: (1) to study the trends of litigation and ascertain its human causes and effects; (2) to study the machinery and functioning of the various agencies and offices which directly or indirectly have to do with the administration of law; (3) to locate precisely and definitely the reasons for delays, expenses, and uncertainty in litigation; (4) to institute a permanent system of judicial records and statistics which would automatically provide information now secured only after great labor; (5) to detect the points at which changes in substantive law would contribute markedly to social justice; and (6) to consider the results of the aforesaid analyses and make recommendations based thereon.

Thus far in the twentieth century Canadian statesmen have been faced with two major constitutional problems, one relating to external autonomy, the other to internal economy. The first of these was the adaptation of existing governmental procedures in such fashion as to make Dominion nationhood a political reality by institutionalizing the processes appropriate to what is now called "Dominion Status." The second has been the development of a more closely integrated national economy within the framework of a federal system. It is not necessary to consider the advisability or soundness of pursuing either of these purposes; it is enough for the student of constitutional machinery that they have been widely assumed as desirable ends, pursuit of which is considered to be progress. The very fact, however, that the attainment of these aims has had to be sought consciously in the past twenty-five years, more than half a century after the establishment of the Dominion, indicates that they were hardly in contemplation in 1867. And, as there can be no progress without change, it must be recognized that the progressive fulfilment of Dominion national aspirations, externally and internally, must carry with it very considerable if not almost revolutionary alteration in Canadian constitutionalism.The obvious purpose of the formulation of the principles of Dominion status was to place each of the Dominions on terms of constitutional equality with Great Britain. If each Dominion had inherited British institutions in their pure form, the result would have been the creation of half a dozen reproductions of the British constitutional system. But no Dominion was actually a simple replica of the British polity, and in consequence the declaration of the new status created almost as many problems as it solved. With regard to the external aspects, the Dominions differed among themselves as to the immediate desirability of the legal consequences of the new status, so the Statute of Westminster, 1931, was drawn in such a way as to apply automatically only to Canada, the Irish Free State, and South Africa; for the other Dominions, the Statute was to come into operation only when adopted by them. So, also, with regard to the internal aspects, special reservations were made in the Statute to protect the constitutional systems of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand from change.

On Understanding the Supreme Court By Paul A. Freund Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1949. Pp. 130. $3.00 reviewer: Noel T. Dowling ================================== Courts on Trial By Jerome N. Frank Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949. Pp. vii, 441. $5.00 reviewer: Hugo L. Black, Jr. ================================== Hugo L. Black: A Study in the Judicial Process By Charlotte Williams Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1950. Pp. vii, 208. $3.50. reviewer: George H. Cate, Sr. ==================================== Hatch Act Decisions (Political Activity Cases) of the United States Civil Service Commission By James W. Irwin Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1949. Pp. 304. $1.50 reviewer: Henry N. Williams

In addressing the court in due-process cases one should not commence with the usual salutation "May it please the Court." Instead, one should say "My Lords." Backed by and charged with the enforcement of the due-process clause of the fifth and fourteenth amendments, the Supreme Court of the United States is the American substitute for the British house of lords. It constitutes the real and only conservative second chamber of the federal government. It is a second conservative chamber for each of the state governments.The time has come when the political scientists of the country should recognize, in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court under the due-process clause, the functioning of a second chamber, organized to defeat the popular will as expressed in legislation when that will appears to endanger what the court may regard as a fundamental requirement of the social structure itself.Like all conservative second chambers, the Supreme Court and the due-process clause are in a hopeless dilemma. If the popular will were frustrated as often as the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice McReynolds indicate that it should be, the second chamber function of the court would be assailed by the recall of judicial decisions. If the court bowed to the popular will as often as the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Holmes indicate that it should, the second chamber function of the court would cease to be exercised.