A Secret Police: The Lasting Impact of the 1986 FOIA Amendments

The 1986 Freedom of Information Act amendments were passed as a last-minute rider to Reagan-era War on Drugs legislation. The three pieces – a broad restructuring of Exemption 7, the law enforcement exemption; the addition of exclusions for law enforcement and intelligence requests; and introduction of a new fee structure – have had a lasting impact on FOIA implementation and contribute to the contemporary inability to affect police transparency. Review of the 1986 FOIA amendments’ legislative history documents the White House’s determination to loosen law enforcement oversight and congressional appeals to exaggerated fears of illicit drug users. The study considers the effect on judicial interpretation of Exemption 7, exploring decisions before and after the amendments, while also analyzing FOIA use and implementation patterns through a dataset of annual reports from 1975 until present. The analysis reveals a sharp increase in Exemption 7 claims and “no records” responses, both attributable to the 1986 FOIA amendments.     

Judicial Review of Politics: The Israeli Case

In the tradition of studies questioning the impact of celebrated court rulings, this article discusses the effectiveness of the judicial review of politics conducted by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Israeli Supreme Court is generally viewed as a highly influential, almost omnipotent body. During the last two decades, the Court has intervened repeatedly in the so–called political domain, thereby progressively eroding the scope of realms considered non–justiciable. It has ventured to enter domains of 'pure' political power to review the legality of political agreements, political appointments (appointments of political allies to public positions), and political allocations (government funding to organizations affiliated with its political supporters). The prevalent perception is that these developments had a significant impact on Israeli political life. The present article challenges this view and argues that, on closer scrutiny, the influence of the Court on many of the issues reviewed here is negligible. First, many of the doctrines developed by the Court in order to review political measures proved ineffective. Usually, when the Supreme Court (acting as a High Court of Justice) engages in judicial review, it lacks the evidence needed in order to decide that administrative decisions on public appointments or public funding should be abolished because they were based on political or self–serving considerations. Second, the norms mandated by the Court hardly influence politicians' decisions in everyday life, and are applied only in contested cases. The reasons for this situation are not only legal but also socio–political. Large sections of current Israeli society support interest–group politics and do not accept the values that inspire the Court.     

Medicare program; Medicare Geographic Classification Review Board--procedures and criteria--HCFA. Final rule with comment period

This final rule with comment period responds to public comments on the September 6, 1990 interim final rule with comment period that established the Medicare Geographic Classification Review Board (MGCRB) and sets forth the criteria for the MGCRB to use in issuing its decisions concerning the geographic reclassification of hospitals for purposes of payment under the prospective payment system. In addition, this final rule with comment period implements provisions of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 concerning the MGCRB.     

Review Essay / Justifying the rights of pregnancy: The interest view

Bonnie Steinbock, Life Before Birth New York, Oxford University Press, 1992, 256 pp.     

Ideals and Practices in the Rule of Law: An Essay on Legal Politics

Massoud, Mark Fathi. 2013 . Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 277. Paper $34.99. This essay responds to the three commentators in the symposium on my book, Law's Fragile State, by describing the sociolegal study of the rule of law as an investigation into both a set of ideals (the rule of law as a normative question) and a set of practices (the rule of law as an empirical question). Studying the rule of law involves understanding the contingent nature of its ideals as well as investigating the actual work that lawyers, judges, state officials, aid workers, activists, and others have done in specific contexts to promote legal remedies to social or political ills. These overlapping layers of the study of the rule of law—ideals and practices, normative and empirical—provide a sociolegal framework for understanding the successes and failures of legal work and, ultimately, how citizens experience state power in democratic and nondemocratic societies alike.