Expounding the Constitution: Essays in Constitutional Theory

Description

What does it mean to interpret the constitution? Does constitutional interpretation involve moral reasoning, or is legal reasoning something different? What does it mean to say that a limit on a right is justified? How does judicial review fit into a democratic constitutional order? Are attempts to limit its scope incoherent? How should a jurist with misgivings about the legitimacy of judicial review approach the task of judicial review? Is there a principled basis for judicial deference? Do constitutional rights depend on the protection of a written constitution, or is there a common law constitution that is enforceable by the courts? How are constitutional rights and unwritten constitutional principles to be reconciled? In this book, these and other questions are debated by some of the world's leading constitutional theorists and legal philosophers. Their essays are essential reading for anyone concerned with constitutional rights and legal theory.

Grant Huscroft is Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Western Ontario in London. He was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, from 1992-2002 and has been a visiting professor at McGill University. He has written extensively about constitutional rights and judicial review and his work has been published in Canada, the United States, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. He co-authored the leading treatise on constitutional rights in New Zealand, The New Zealand Bill of Rights, and has co-edited four collections of essays.

"...An eclectic array of writing with transnational panache....Huscroft has done a fine job of collecting interesting essays. The book presents a politically and philosophically balanced view of constitutional theory....The essays are fairly accessible....Huscroft's introduction helps weave the patchwork of essays together....Altogether, the book is a good read, and is recommended for those interested in constitutional theory and interpretation, judicial review, and legal philosophy." --Adam Shajnfeld (J.D., Columbia), The Law and Politics Book Review