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2 “Again, there is no liberty, if the judicial power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator … But though the tribunals ought not to be fixed, the judgments ought; and to such a degree as to be ever conformable to the letter of the law …

But as we have already observed, the national judges are no more than the mouth that pronounces the words of the law, mere passive beings, incapable of moderating either its force or rigor”.

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3 http://www.sigov.si/us/eus.map.html.

4 For two recent examples: when the challenge to the introduction of the “Euro” before the German Constitutional Court failed, the losing law professor claimed that the decision was “highly political and opportunistic” and that “Germany is no longer a law-based state”: International Herald Tribune, April 3, 1998: 1, 12 Google Scholar; and in a widely reported speech to new judges, the President of the Supreme Court of Israel responded to critics by saying: “Those who argue that we should not hand down rulings on issues with political implications don't understand what a court is”, reiterating his claim in United Mizrahi Bank (infra n. 5, at 162) that though “a constitutional determination has political ramifications … it is not made out of political considerations” but rather considerations that are “legal-constitutional”. Ha'aretz (English edition), June 3, 1998: 3 Google Scholar.

5 United Mizrahi Bank Ltd., et al. v. Migdal Cooperative Village, et al., (1995) 49(iv) P.D. 221, opinion of the President of the Court, Justice Aharon Barak (in English translation, at 121. All future references to this case cite the English translation).

6 Aristotle, , Politica, Book III, Chapter 8 in McKeon, R., ed., Introduction to Aristotle (Random House, 1947) 592–593 Google Scholar:

“Oligarchy is when men of property have the government in their hands; democracy, the opposite, when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers … For the real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy. But as a fact the rich are few and the poor many … and wealth and freedom are the grounds on which the oligarchical and democratical parties respectively claim power in the state”.

7 Plato, , The Republic, Book VIII, Lee, H.D.P., trans, and ed. (Penguin Books, 1955) 338 Google Scholar. A very narrow notion of citizenship allowed Athenian “democracy” to exclude women and slaves, constituting more than two-thirds of the adult population. See “Translator's Introduction” ibid., at 23. However, this evidently left enough room for class conflict so as to horrify the property holders.

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9 Supra, n. 6, Book III: 7, 592.

10 Supra, n. 7, at 329, 331, 338.

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12 This is not the place to parade the latest statistics on the vertiginous growth in in equality of economic power, which nobody disputes anymore. Here s just one from the United States as reported in the International Herald Tribune of March 2, 1998, at p. 3 Google Scholar: “The top 1% of Amercians have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, the report [of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation] says, placing the United States first among industrialized nations when it comes to wealth inequality”. For some Canadian figures, see my The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of Politics in Canada (Thompson Educational Publishers, 2d ed., 1994) 337–340 Google Scholar.

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18 Ibid., at 80.

19 Ibid., at 111.

20 Justice Barak cites no historians for his claims in United Mizrahi Bank on the lessons of the Second World War, only the lawyers McWhinney, Cappelletti and Brewer-Carías, ibid., at 111.

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22 Ibid., at 83-85.

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24 Quoted in Blachly, F.F. and Oatman, Miriam E., “Judicial Review of Legislative Acts in Germany”, (1927), 21 Am. Pol. Science R. 113, at 117 Google Scholar.

25 The bias gave rise to jokes such as the following:

There was shock when the Berlin judge sentenced the two Communists to only 5 years in prison for the crime of beating up an SA man. But the judge explained that, though the crime was very grave, he had to take into account, as a mitigating factor, that there was absolutely no evidence connecting the accused to the crime!

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28 Ibid., at 220.

29 Ibid., at 220-222.

30 Ward, Ian, Law, Philosophy & National Socialism (1992)Google Scholar. The same claim is made in Koch, H.W., A Constitutional History of Germany in the 19th and 20th Century, (Longman, 1984)Google Scholar, in which one can also find an unusually sympathetic treatment of the German judiciary.

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33 Ibid., at 410-425.

34 Of the many accounts of these events besides those already cited, see the discussions in Bessel, Richard, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism: The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925-1934 (Yale University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Fischer, Klaus P., Nazi Germany: A New History (Constable, 1995)Google Scholar; and the classic Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (Pan Books, 1964)Google Scholar.

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37 Federal Constitutional Law of the Republic of Austria, 1920, Art. 89.

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39 Ibid., Art. 147.

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52 Ibid., at 330 (my translation).

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55 Lochner v. New York 198 U.S. 45 (1905); Hammer v. Dagenhart 247 U.S. 251 (1918); Bailey v. Drexel Furniture 259 U.S. 20 (1922) discussed in Griffin, Stephen M., American Constitutionalism: From Theory to Politics, (Princeton University Press, 1996) 88–90 Google Scholar. See also Galloway, Russell, Justice For All? Rich and Poor in Supreme Court History 1790-1990 (Carolina Academic Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

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77 Ibid., Art. 125.

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79 Supra n. 76, Art. 8.

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89 The amending formula requires a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly, and in some cases seventy-five percent, as well as the support of six provinces: The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, sec. 74. The African National Congress polled 62.6% of the votes in the April 1994 elections: The Globe and Mail, May 7, 1994, p. A16 Google Scholar.

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96 See, for example, the complicated property section, Art. 25 which guarantees property rights and “just and equitable” compensation “approved by a court”, in the limited circumstances permitted for expropriation, which, however, include “the nation's commitment to land reform”. The same provision commits the state to “take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis”.

97 Motala, Ziyad, “Independence of the Judiciary, Prospects and Limitations of Judicial Review in Terms of the United States Model in a New South African Legal Order: Towards an Alternative Judicial Structure”, (1991) 55 Albany L.R. 367, at 383, n. 117, 384-386Google Scholar.

98 See the Court's website <http://sunsite.wits.ac.za/law/court/conjuris.html> for biographies of the judges. Albie Sachs is one of them. The tenure is a relatively long 12 years: Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, Art. 176.

99 Ibid., Art. 174.

100 Ng'ong'ola, Clement, “The Post-Colonial Era in Relation to Land Expropriation Laws in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe”, (1992) 41 Int'l Comp. L.Q. 117, at 134 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mazrui, Ali A., “Planned Governance and the Liberal Revival in Africa: The Paradox of Anticipation”, (1992) 25 Cornell Int'l L.J. 541, at 548–549 Google Scholar. Seven years after the constitutional guarantees had expired, Zimbabwe had yet to act on its legal right to redistribute land from the 4,000 white farmers who own half of the arable land to the 8 million black farmers who live on the other half: International Herald Tribune, January 24-25, 1998; February 16, 1998.

101 The Globe and Mail, 3 February 1992, p. A1 Google Scholar.

102 American Communications Association v. Douds 339 U.S. 382 (1950); Dennis v. United States 341 U.S. 494 (1951).

103 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

104 Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

105 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

106 A 1998 report of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation says that despite gains by black elites, the mass of black people in the U.S. suffer from its increasing class inequality: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and minorities are suffering disproportionately” (International Herald Tribune, March 2, 1998, p. 3)Google Scholar.

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110 Ibid., at 229-240.

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114 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (1992).

115 Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).

116 McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987). Blacks account for 1,349 of the 3,219 prisoners on death row. Of the 358 executions between 1977 and November 30, 1997, 200 were of black prisoners. In the first 11 months of 1997 there were 70 executions: U.S. Department of Justice, “Prisoner Executions Rise Significantly”, Press Release of December 14, 1997. <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/cp96.pr>

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122 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).

123 Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989); Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation et al. 115 S.Ct. 2097 (1995); Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh, “Affirmative Action in the U.S. Supreme Court: The Adarand Case — The Final Chapter?”, (1997) Public Law 43 Google Scholar.

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139 Soobramoney v. Minister of Health (KwaZulu-Natal), CCT 32/97 (Constitutional Court, 26 November 1997), where the textually unqualified “right to life” was held to be subject to available resources in a kidney dialysis case. The constitution also explicitly makes many of the social rights subject to “reasonable legislative and other measures, within … available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right”. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996, (sec. 27 — Health care, food, water and social security).

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161 Mandel, supra n. 125, at 273. A recent decision of the Italian Constitutional Court struck down as “unreasonable” the exclusion of new couples with children from the special list for access to public housing, which was formerly restricted to new couples without children. The decision no doubt expanded the special list, but it did nothing to increase “the limited availability of residential public housing which renders very difficult, in concrete terms, its assignment to those who are only on the general list”. The gain of these couples would have to be at the expense of others similarly situated. Sentenza 18 febbraio 1998, No. 17 Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica italiana, Anno 139 — Numero 8 at 18 (my translation).

162 The Indian Supreme Court opposed affirmative action in education as early as 1962: W.H. Morris-Jones, supra n. 131, at 135.

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169 Mandel, supra n. 12, 240-257; supra n. 125, at 276-279.

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171 I remember well watching a clip from a Senate debate on Italian television shortly after Giovanni Agnelli, the hereditary owner of FIAT, had been made Senator for Life. Because of his enormous economic power, Agnelli has for the longest time been a powerful force in Italian politics, to be courted by politicians at every opportunity. But, at this moment in the Senate, when Senators were scrambling around in various grouplets before an important vote, I remember being amazed (and, I confess, delighted) to see how poor and forlorn Agnelli looked as he was virtually ignored by the experienced politicians. He had been effectively cut down to size in this forum of one-person-one-vote, where his economic power was, for the time being, irrelevant.

172 Dworkin, supra n. 14, at 27.

173 McChesney, supra n. 120, at 32.

174 Herman, Edward S. and McChesney, Robert W., The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism (Cassell, 1997) 147 Google Scholar.

175 Dworkin, supra n. 14, at 18.

176 Dworkin, supra n. 14, at 10-11.

177 Pashukanis, Evgeny B., Law and Marxism: A General Theory, (Pluto Press, 1989) 149, n. 21Google Scholar.

178 Attributed to Maximilien Harden (1861-1927) by Eyck, supra n. 23, Vol. II at 416.