The Rule of Reason in European Citizenship

Abstract:  This article reviews the European Court of Justice's case-law on European citizenship in the light of aspects of the rights theories of Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy. More specifically, the free movement right in Article 18(1) EC is conceptualised as a Dworkinian principle and as a prima-facie right or 'optimisation precept' in Alexy's sense. Against this backdrop the article argues that Article 18(1) can best be interpreted by drawing an analogy with the economic free movement provisions. The central argument is that the rule of reason also applies to European citizenship, or that there is a rule of reason in European citizenship. The analogy encompasses both the definition of the scope of Article 18(1) and its limitations. With regard to the latter, it is contended that there is no conceptual distinction between the 'limitations' and 'conditions' referred to in that provision. Particular emphasis is placed on the recent case-law concerning the question of access to welfare benefits. In this regard it is suggested that the notion of a 'structural link' constitutes both a threshold criterion to trigger the prima-facie right in Article 18(1) as well as a benchmark for assessing the degree of solidarity owed to the migrant citizen. The rule of reason approach leads to the stipulation of a thin, juridical conception of European citizenship that does not rely in any way on thick, essentialist properties.     

Criminal charges against marijuana compassion club volunteers stayed on constitutional grounds

A Court of Québec judge stayed trafficking charges laid in February 2000 against two Montréal men in conjunction with the operation of a medical marijuana compassion club. The judge determined that it would be unjust to allow the criminal procedure to continue. Section 5 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) unjustifiably infringed the accuseds' Charter rights to life, liberty, and security of the person (section 7) by prohibiting the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes when no legal source or supply existed at the time.     

Marihuana Medical Access Regulations unconstitutional because they do not provide for legal source or supply of marijuana

In a 9 January 2003 ruling in Hitzig, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice determined that the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) fail to provide for a legal source and safe supply of marijuana. This failure infringed the applicants' section 7 Charter rights to liberty and security of the person in a manner inconsistent with the principles of fundamental justice. The MMAR could not be saved under section I of the Charter. The Court declared the MMAR invalid, but suspended that order for six months to allow the government to decide how to create a legal source and supply of marijuana.     

Roe v. Wade and the history of abortion regulation

In "Roe," the Supreme Court found that the privacy right in the 14th amendment's view of "personal liberty" encompasses a woman's right to choose an abortion. The Court found that "abortion is a fundamental right." These conclusions are mistaken. The Court's analysis of "the history of abortion regulation" had a lot of errors and did not consider the state of technology in which abortion evolved. Sir Edward Coke, a 16th and 17th century jurist, said that abortion was a "great misprison." Quickening, the point at which a woman feels life, was used to determine fetal viability. State courts, therefore, viewed "abortion after quickening as common law crime." By the end of 1868, 30 to the then 37 states had passed laws restricting abortion. The Supreme Court said that the 19th century laws were passed to guard the mother's health "against the dangers of unsafe operation." In the 15 months before "Roe," 5 state courts said that their abortion laws were constitutional. They said that this was "intended to protect the lives of unborn children." Therefore, the Court's belief that "the state courts focused on the State's interest in protecting "the health of the mother" was unexplainable. The Court said that in many states the woman couldn't "be prosecuted for self-abortion." 17 states did "incriminate the woman's participation in her own abortion," but the Court did not note this. The Court's premise about the greater hazards of late abortions is mistaken. The states were concerned, in the late 19th century, about whether the attempted abortion caused the death of a child. The "right to an abortion" can only be seen as "fundamental" if it is "implicit" in the "ordered liberty" concept or "deeply rooted" in US tradition and history. "Roe" struck down the abortion laws of all 50 states and should be overturned.     

The Court of Justice and the Union Citizen

Abstract Over a decade since the conception of the Union citizen, the aim of this article very simply is to measure his growth and maturity with a sustained analysis of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice in this regard. After all, it was Advocate General Lèger who stated that it was for the Court to ensure that its full scope was attained. The article focuses predominantly on three areas of study: Member State nationality law and citizenship, the effect and meaning of Article 18 EC, and the ever‐evolving right to equal treatment for the Union citizen. It is fully updated in the light of recent case law, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, and the newly adopted Directive 2004/58 EC.     

Is state power to protect health compatible with substantive due process rights?

Public health laws may mandate drastic limitations on individual liberty, such as forced medication and quarantine. This results in a tension between public health laws and guarantees of liberty such as the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has resolved this tension in favor of one or the other of these legal principles, depending on the facts and issues involved. Nevertheless, Supreme Court jurisprudence is internally consistent. The Court has applied a level of scrutiny that, while rigorous, is more flexible than strict scrutiny. I denote this as "enhanced public health scrutiny." Applying this scrutiny, the Court will uphold public health legislation if it protects an inchoate class of people who may not yet be identifiable, who will incur a specific disease or injury absent the law, but who will not experience this disease or injury if the law is enforced. If this doctrine were explicit, it would constitute a clear guideline to courts seeking to balance health and liberty concerns. This guideline would be consistent with current case law, and would not impact on law affecting reproductive liberty.     

Rules for Rights: European Law,Health Care and Social Citizenship

Social citizenship is about equality. The obvious problem for European social citizenship in a very diverse Union is that Member States will not be able or willing to bear the cost of establishing equal rights to health care and similar aspects of social citizenship. Health care is a particularly good case of this tension between EU citizenship and Member State diversity. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) strengthened the right to health care in other Member States, but this cannot create an equal right to health care when Member States are so different. In its efforts to balance a European right, the Court has formulated ‘rules for rights’—not so much European social citizenship rights, as a set of legal principles by which it judges the decisions of the Member States.     

Citizenship and Unauthorised Migration: a Dialectical Relationship

The relationship between citizenship and immigration law is often conceived as a conceptual dichotomy in which the former functions as the rhetorical domain of inclusion while immigration law does the dirty work of detention, deportation and snooping into peoples’ lives in order to uphold the inclusive values of the internal domain. States however employ a variety of practices of immigration control that infringe citizens’ rights and produce lasting dilatory effects on citizenship itself. Focusing on two specific case studies – racial profiling in identity checks carried out for immigration purposes and the standards of interpretation developed by the European Court of Human Rights in regard to the right to family life in expulsion cases – this article argues that current practices of immigration control result in a transformation of citizenship along racialised lines, which hollows citizenship's normative core of equality and liberty.     

行政诉讼受案范围与原告资格关系之辨

在我国,行政法学理论与实务对行政诉讼受案范围与原告资格关系的认识存在混淆。就受案范围来说,从行为作出结果出发判断是否“实际影响权利义务”,从而界定行为属性的做法,既是循环论证,也是受案范围容易与原告资格混淆的根本原因。正确的逻辑应当是从构成要件出发判断行为属性,“实际影响权利义务”是一个行为属于行政行为之后的当然结果。就原告资格来说,相对人受到行政行为法律效果侵害,遵从行为不法的逻辑,受案范围满足即意味着原告资格的满足。其他利害关系人受到行政行为事实效果侵害,遵从结果不法的逻辑,原告资格判断需要另行从损害结果出发归责行为违法性。受案范围与原告资格纠缠形成的牵连性阶段体系表明,应当探索在终局行为前阶段构建定分止争制度。     

马萨诸塞州诉美国联邦环保局案的述评

马萨诸塞州诉美国联邦环保局案是美国第一件具有里程碑意义的气候变化公益诉讼案件,该案体现了美国各州和民间力量通过公民诉讼方式促进政府采取温室气体减排行动的艰巨努力。该案从联邦上诉法院一审到联邦最高法院再审,始终存在较大争议,其中关于原告诉讼资格的争议更是人声鼎沸。在联邦最高法院判决中,原告仅以微弱优势胜诉。尽管关于原告胜诉的理由仍有颇多争议,但该案在明确温室气体属于《清洁空气法》的调整范围、拓展气候变化公民诉讼原告的诉讼资格以及确立公民诉讼可以促进政府采取减排行动等方面,都具有非常积极的意义。     

Scrutiny Land: Scrutiny Land is the place where government needs to justify to a court its restrictions on the liberties of the people

Scrutiny Land is the place where government needs to justify to a court its restrictions on the liberties of the people. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court began limiting access to Scrutiny Land. While the New Deal Court merely shifted the burden to those challenging a law to show that a restriction of liberty is irrational, the Warren Court made the presumption of constitutionality effectively irrebuttable. After this, only one road to Scrutiny Land remained: showing that the liberty being restricted was a fundamental right. The Glucksberg Two-Step, however, limited the doctrine of fundamental rights to those (1) narrowly defined liberties that are (2) deeply rooted in tradition and history. In this Article, I explain how the ability to define accurately almost any liberty as broad or narrow improperly gives courts complete discretion to protect liberty or not as it chooses. I then describe an alternative that is suggested by the approach taken by the Court in Lawrence v. Texas: a general presumption of liberty. Not only is such an approach practical, it is also more consistent with the text and original meaning of the Constitution than is the Glucksburg Two-Step.     

Randi W. v. Muroc Joint Unified School District 1997: implications for employer liability in employment references

The California Supreme Court in the case entitled Randi W. v. Muroc Joint Unified School District 1997 ruled that employers may be liable for negligently and intentionally misrepresenting an employee's suitability in their employment references. The case concerned a 13‐year‐old girl student who was allegedly molested by a school vice‐principal, Robert Gadams, in his office. Gadams had been the subject of charges of sexual impropriety involving female students in his three previous teaching posts. The plaintiff sued Gadams, and a range of defendants who had written references recommending him for employment. The Court found that the defendants could be held liable for fraud and misrepresentation because the facts allegedly known about Gadams were not disclosed in the references. The article examines the consequences of the ruling for the provision of employment references. In particular, it examines the ‘no comment’ option, whereby employers only confirm basic employment details about employees.     

从"马萨诸塞州诉环境保护总署"案谈美国公民公益诉讼制度及对我国的启示

2007年4月美国联邦最高法院对"马萨诸塞州诉环境保护总署"案的终审判决,体现了公民诉讼制度的立法本意。该案进一步明确了公民诉讼的性质,肯定了地方政府和非政府组织或公民为适格的原告,降低了原告关于损害事实的证明负担,淡化了因果关系要求。借鉴美国制度,建立公益诉讼制度,赋予相关机关、社会团体和公民提起环保公益诉讼的权利,是我国有效治理污染的唯一途径。     

Relatively Absolute? The Undermining of Article 3 ECHR in Ahmad v UK

The recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Ahmad v UK dangerously undermines the well‐established case law of the Court on counter‐terrorism and non‐refoulement towards torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Although ostensibly rejecting the ‘relativist’ approach to Article 3 ECHR adopted by the House of Lords in Wellington v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Court appeared to accept that what is a breach of Article 3 in a domestic context may not be a breach in an extradition or expulsion context. This statement is difficult to reconcile with the jurisprudence constante of the Court in the last fifteen years, according to which Article 3 ECHR is an absolute right in all its applications, including non‐refoulement, regardless of who the potential victim of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment is, what she may have done, or where the treatment at issue would occur.     

A home run for fantasy baseball leagues

The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheldthe ruling of the District Court that CBC's use of baseballplayers' names and statistics in its fantasy baseball leaguedid not violate the players' rights of publicity because itwas protected speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution,and that an earlier contractual provision between the partiescould not be enforced against CBC to preclude its use of theplayers' names and statistics.     

Citizenship and the Biopolitics of Post-nationalist Ireland

In June 2004 voters in the Republic of Ireland endorsed a constitutional amendment to deprive children born on the island of Ireland of their previously automatic right to Irish citizenship. This change came amid increasing immigration and so-called 'baby tourism', whereby non-national mothers were alleged to be coming to Ireland to give birth for the sole purpose of bestowing Irish citizenship on their children. This article sets the referendum in its historical and contemporary context. Along with recent jurisprudence of the Irish Supreme Court, the amendment betokens a distinctive biopolitics orchestrated according to neo-liberal themes consonant with Ireland's membership of the European Union and its foreign direct investment strategy. As such, the amendment confirms the shift in Irish constitutional history from autarkic nationalism to cosmopolitan post-nationalism embodied in the Belfast Agreement of 1998.     

Dintwe v the Directorate of Public Service Management and others: when the court suppresses freedom of expression

This article examines a recent case involving freedom of expression in Botswana and tests it against the country’s constitution. It argues that the Court of Appeal in Botswana erred in the manner in which it adjudicated the case because it departed from well-established common law regarding constitutional interpretation which was laid down by the court itself. If the court had taken the established three past-test approach, it might have reached a different conclusion. In reaching its controversial decision which, we argue, undermined freedom of expression, the court failed to disclose which rights or interests it was protecting in limiting freedom of expression.     

Bouvia v. County of Riverside

The plaintiff, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, had admitted herself voluntarily to the psychiatric department of Riverside General Hospital in September 1983. She then revealed her intention of starving herself to death, requested that hospital personnel administer only pain medication and hygienic care, and sought preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the hospital from either force feeding, transferring, or discharging her. The essence of her legal claim was that society was obliged to honor, and to assist her in carrying out, her privacy right to end her life. While the Superior Court recognized a patient's right to refuse life-sustaining care under some circumstances, it ruled that because Bouvia's condition was not terminal, her rights must yield to the interests of the state and other third parties in preserving life.     

Washington v. Glucksberg was tragically wrong

Properly focused, there were two questions before the Supreme Court in Washington v. Glucksberg. First, in light of all of the other non-textual rights protected by the Supreme Court under the "liberty" of the Due Process Clause, is the right to assisted death a fundamental right? Second, if so, is the prohibition of assisted death necessary to achieve a compelling interest? Presented in this way, it is clear that the Court erred in Washington v. Glucksberg. The right of a terminally ill person to end his or her life is an essential aspect of autonomy, comparable to aspects of autonomy that the Court has protected in decisions concerning family autonomy, reproductive autonomy, and autonomy to engage in sexual activity. Moreover, the government's general interest in protecting life and preventing suicide has far less force when applied to a terminally ill patient. The tragedy of Washington v. Glucksberg is that every day across the country, terminally ill patients are being forced to suffer longer and being denied an essential aspect of their autonomy and personhood.     

Tabet v Gett: the end of loss of chance actions in Australia?

This article critically analyses the recent High Court decision in Tabet v Gett (2010) 84 ALJR 292; [2010] HCA 12 which considered whether a person should be able to obtain compensation on the basis of a loss of a chance of a better medical outcome. The appellant argued that the High Court should regard a plaintiff as entitled to compensation when a breach by a defendant of their duty of care causes the plaintiff to lose a possibility, but not a probability, of a better medical outcome. The High Court held that it was not possible for a person in the position of the appellant to obtain compensation for the loss of a chance of a better medical outcome.