Constitutional identity / Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jacobsohn, Gary J., 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constitutional law--Philosophy.

Constitutional law.

Law--Foreign influences.

Law.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (389 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Constitutional Identity, Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn argues that a constitution acquires an identity through experience—from a mix of the political aspirations and commitments that express a nation’s past and the desire to transcend that past. It is changeable but resistant to its own destruction, and manifests itself in various ways, as Jacobsohn shows in examples as far flung as India, Ireland, Israel, and the United States. Jacobsohn argues that the presence of disharmony—both the tensions within a constitutional order and those that exist between a constitutional document and the society it seeks to regulate—is critical to understanding the theory and dynamics of constitutional identity. He explores constitutional identity’s great practical importance for some of constitutionalism’s most vexing questions: Is an unconstitutional constitution possible? Is the judicial practice of using foreign sources to resolve domestic legal disputes a threat to vital constitutional interests? How are the competing demands of transformation and preservation in constitutional evolution to be balanced?

Contents:

The conundrum of the unconstitutional constitution

The quest for a compelling unity

The permeability of constitutional borders

The sounds of silence : militant and acquiescent constitutionalism

"The first page of the constitution" : family, state, and identity.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674059399

0674059395

OCLC:

709591739