Pittonia Case Summary

Gerald Rosenberg begins his book by posing the questions he will attempt to answer for the reader throughout the rest of the text: Under what conditions do courts produce political and social change? And how effective have the courts been in producing social change under such past decisions as Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education? He then works to define some of the principles and view points 'currently' held about the US Supreme court system.

The idea of a federalist government is great, however, it has some downsides as well. Some advantages of federalism include keeping the government closer to the people, where states have the freedom and authority to make government decisions to local preferences. Federalism also allows local differences to reflected in the state and local government policy and reduce conflicts, this reduces the friction between interests and lessens conflict. The independent subnational governments allow for flexibility and experimentation, where successful policy innovations in one state can be adopted by other states and also the federal government. The achievement of at least some national goals is made easier by the participation of independent subnational

Even though both Canada and the United States are democratic countries, there are key differences in how their government functions and how the country is ruled. For starters, Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy and is ran by prime minister Justin Trudeau and the Parliament, on the other hand, the US is a Republic Democracy ran by a president and the Congress. In the US the head of state is its president but in Canada, for any law or bill to pass the parliament needs to have Royal Assent which is a signature of the Governor General or the Queen. Therefore, this does kind of limit the prime minister’s powers. The Congress and the Parliament are very similar but proceed in a different manner. The Congress is made up of the House of Representatives which has their members voted in every two years as well as the Senate whose members are voted in every six

Federalism is a system in which the power is shared between the national and regional government, following democratic rules.

all states were represented equally in the Senate. This made the smaller states happy. In the House of Representatives, representation was based on population. This pleased the bigger states. The Great Compromise settled the method of representation in the legislative branch. Small states wanted equal representation, and large states wanted representation based on

The court structure in the United States is comprised of a dual court system. The dual court system consists of “one system of state and local courts and another system of federal courts” (Bohm & Haley, 2011, p. 274). Although the system has a separate court system for state and federal court, they do connect in the United States Supreme Court. Each court has various levels of jurisdiction to hear and make decisions over cases (Bohm & Haley, 2011).

This method of legal governance was created based upon the common law system that is used in England and in some areas of Scotland. This organizational hierarchy is considered bi-jurisdictional, which is a result of the public and private laws being separated into the jurisdictions of the Parliament and the individual Provinces. Regardless of which unit is governing, each legal system is responsible for upholding the laws written in the Canadian Constitution. The Canadian Parliament has sole control over the transportation and energy infrastructures of the country, no matter which Province they reside

Canada’s rules and rights are a part of what defines the nation. Without the implementation of laws, Canada and any other nation for that matter would not be able to live so cohesively. When analyzing the laws and constitutions that Canada has put into place, the most important law is very debateable. However, after doing research it is very clear that the most significant issue that Canada has faced to this day is the enactment of The Constitution Act of 1982, and the effect it has had on Canada. The rights and fundamental rules in the act has changed Canada for the better. Aboriginal rights have been enforced, everyone has equal rights, no matter who they are, and most importantly it confirmed the independence

After America’s fight for freedom and the brief period of time when there was no human being ruling over them, the Framers saw this as their chance to reinvent the country. However, the Framers viewed people as “an atom of self-interest”, meaning that they only care about their personal success and necessities. This became difficult during the secretive meetings of the Constitutional Convention, as they were trying to start forming what would be the Constitution. It became clearer that “this distrust in man was a first and foremost concern”. At the time, the Framers believed that men “of affairs, merchants, lawyers, planter-businessmen, speculators, investors (essentially middle and lower-class citizens) were evil, selfish, contentious.” The

Federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between federal government, state government and provinces government. While federalism has many benefits, among them is checks and balances between the federal and state government, thus reducing the chances of one party getting too powerful and abusing their power. Preventing one party from being too powerful and abusing their powers is a good thing. However, it comes with a price that federal and provinces (state and local) governments do not always see eye to eye and agree with each other, which turns into conflict.

Our government today has its similarities and differences from our government back in the colonial times. Back during the period of time 1630-1770s the colonies had a lawmaking body referred to as Parliament. The Parliament they had is similar to our today, they’re similar because they both make laws. The Parliament is a bicameral legislature, meaning that it is made up of 2 houses. This relates to our government as well because in our legislative branch it has two houses: House of Representatives and the Senate. Unlike the two names we call both of the houses, back then they used to be the “Houses of Burgesses” and the “Council of State.” During the colonial times, often times the colonists didn’t have the right to elect their representatives.

The separate colonies of Australia gained self-government during the nineteenth century and less than half a century later Australia became the first nation to vote itself into existence through popular referendum. How does Australia’s democracy in today’s modern age stack up on those early days of a fledgling democracy. The term democracy is a contested concept with many classifications. A government made up of the people for the people is the easiest definition to focus on. A democracy needs have these key elements of a political system for choosing the

Judges has various roles and2 duties in the constitutional democracy of Canada. They interpret the law, assess the evidence presented, and control how hearings and trials unfold in their courtrooms. Most important of all, judges are impartial decision-makers in the pursuit of justice. (Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association, n.d.). The Canadian Judiciary is an adversarial system of justice and the legal cases are challenged between opposing sides, which assures that evidences and legal disputes will be completely and forcefully presented. The judge, however, remains above the all these problems, providing a totally independent and unbias assessment of the facts and how the law can be implemented to these facts.

The controversy whether international law is a law or not resolves on the divergent definitions of the word “law” given by the jurist. If we subscribe to the view of Hobbes, Austin and Pufendorf, that law is a command of sovereign enforced by a superior political authority then international law cannot be included in the category of law. On the other hand if, we subscribe to the view that the term“law”cannot be limited to rules enacted by superior political authority, then international law can be included in the category of law. Lawrence aptly remarked that everything depends upon the definition of law which we choose to adopt.

Parliamentarism, or a parliamentary government, is defined “as a system of government in which the executive, the government, is chosen by and is responsible to…the legislature.” (Gerring, Thacker and Moreno, 2005, p. 15) With this form of governmental control, many advantages and disadvantages arise, especially when this system is compared to the likes of ‘Presidential systems’ or even that of ‘Semi-presidential systems’. However, my aim within this essay is to, both, highlight to advantages of parliamentarism, and to also give my opinion as to why this system is better when compared and contrasted with the aforementioned systems.