Constitutions in Crisis: Political Violence and the Rule of LawIn this compelling study, which unites the fields of constitutional theory and comparative politics, John E. Finn examines how the efforts of two western liberal democracies, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany, to cope with domestic terrorism threatens their constitutional integrity. Finn argues first that widespread political violence challenges the presuppositions of constitutional authority in any liberal democracy, namely that reason and deliberation, and not passion or will, can be the basis of political community. Terrorism therefore constitutes both a specific type of constitutional emergency and a challenge to the more general enterprise of constitutional maintenance. He then proceeds to review the efforts of the United Kingdom and Germany to control political violence through emergency legislation, and considers to what extent such measures comport with the demands of constitutionalism and the rule of law. |
Contents
| 3 | |
Constitutional Maintenance and the Legal Control of Political Violence | 11 |
Constitutional Maintenance and Dissolution in Northern Ireland | 47 |
Constitutional Maintenance and Reconstruction in Germany | 135 |
Conclusion | 219 |
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amendments argued arrest Article 48 authority Baker Report Basic Law Belfast Berufsverbot Boyle British Brüning Bundestag Carl Catholic chancellor civil rights claim commitment Committee common law constitutional democracy constitutional document constitutional maintenance constitutional order constitutional reconstruction constitutionalism constitutive principles crises crisis decision decrees defendant Derry detention Dictatorship Diplock courts elections emergency legislation emergency powers Emergency Provisions Act Federal Constitutional Court Federal Republic free democratic Friedrich German individual internment judges judicial review jurisprudence jury Kommers Länder legal positivism liberties limited London ment militant democracy minister norms Northern Ireland Northern Irish offense organization parliamentary party percent political violence president Prevention of Terrorism procedures Protestant reason Reich Reichstag republic's requirement rules Schmitt Section 11 security forces Sinn Fein Special Powers Act Stormont Supergrasses supra supra n suspect suspicion Terrorism Act terrorist tion tional trial Ulster University Press Weimar Constitution Weimar Republic West Germany York
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Page 4 - It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Page 5 - When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union and all the guarantees of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.