Suchergebnisse

The term 'militant democracy' was coined by Karl Loewenstein in the 1930s. He argued that attempts to establish democracy in the Weimar Republic failed due to the lack of militancy against subversive movements. The concept of militant democracy was introduced to legal scholarship and constitutional practice so as to provide democracy with legal means to defend itself against the range of possible activities of non-democratic political actors. This book offers a broad comparative look at the legal concept of militant democracy.

Abstract
This article investigates recent developments in Spain's anti-terrorism regime, in particular the 2002 Law on Political Parties which introduced a non-criminal procedure to outlaw political parties. The 2002 Law was adopted as a response to the continuing exist­ence of political violence associated with terrorist group ETA. It therefore constitutes part of the national counterterrorism regime. This article argues that the 2002 Law was a leg­islative novelty and that its immediate application to ban the political party Batasuna brought about substantial changes to the existing system of constitutional protection of political freedoms, as well as modifying the established standards of constitutional review of anti-terrorism legislation. Furthermore, the result of the November 2011 Spanish parlia­mentary elections has brought questions on the effectiveness of the 2002 Law and its pos­sible future application to the fore of political and legal discourse. The article concludes that the outcome of the 2002 Law on Political Parties is rather disappointing and suggests that there are lessons other democracies can learn both for their counterterrorism policies and treatment of political parties.

Abstract
The re-adoption of trial by jury in Russia in 1993 was heralded as a significant break with the discredited legal system of a crumbling regime. However, in less than twenty years the jury in Russian criminal trials has been significantly undermined; that process is particularly evident in the field of counterterrorism. This article examines the history of trial by jury in Russia, the constitutional and legislative provisions adopted in the 1990s, and the rolling back of these provisions in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Given the adoption of jury trial in a number of democracies in the early 1990s the underlying causes of the rapid Russian retrenchment are of significance beyond the Rus­sian Federation. The jury was not a legal transplant in Russia and it was hoped that conditions were fertile for the jury to flourish. This has not proven to be the case: Russian jury trial may have a long history but it has shallow roots.