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This book challenges the myths surrounding the Irish Free Constitution by analysing the document in its context, by looking at how the Constitution was drafted and elucidating the true nature of the document. It examines the reasons why the Constitution did not function as anticipated and investigates whether the failures of the document can be attributed to errors of judgment in the drafting process or to subsequent events and treatment of the document. As well as giving a comprehensive account of the drafting stages and an analysis of the three alternative drafts for the first time, the book considers the intellectual influences behind the Constitution and the central themes of the document. This work constitutes a new look at this historic document through a legal lens and the analysis benefits from the advantage of hindsight as well as the archival material now available. Given the fact that the current Constitution substantially reproduces much of the 1922 text, the work will be of interest to modern constitutional scholars as well as legal historians and anyone with an interest in the period surrounding the creation of the Irish State.

Fifty Years of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is the very first edited collection on ICERD, the oldest of the UN human rights treaties. With a major Introduction and 13 chapters, it provides a unique combination of members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and academic and other experts, to discuss the importance of the treaty on its 50^th anniversary.

This volume brings together academic scholars and judges together to consider themes flowing from the often complex relationships between ‘law’ and ‘politics’, ‘adjudication’ and ‘policy-making’, the ‘judicial’ and ‘political’ branches of government. Part I addresses questions concerning the nature and extent of judicial power from a largely theoretical perspective. The chapters engage with abstract work on democracy and legitimacy in the context of the wielding and exercise of public (particularly judicial) power, including judicial interpretation and judicial review of legislative action. Part II addresses the European Court of Human Rights decision in O’Keeffe v Ireland and provides contrasting judicial and academic perspectives on the role of the European Court of Human Rights and the nature of exhausting domestic remedies. Part III comprises chapters that address questions around the process of appointing judges and judicial representation or dialogue between the judicial and executive branch. Comparative and theoretical frameworks inform this discussion. Part IV is devoted to legal history and address historical questions pertaining to judges power and adjudication. The role of specific judges, social and political disputes and case law are examined. Part V comprises three chapters, each of which has a quite specific focus but all engaging questions pertaining to judicial power and political processes. Socio-economic rights, the rule of law and and electoral processes are addressed.

In recent years there has been a significant growth in interest of the so-called “law in context” extending legal studies beyond black letter law. This book looks at the relationship between written law and legal practice. It examines how law is applied in reality and more precisely how law is perceived by the general public in contrast to the legal profession. The authors look at a number of themes that are central to examining ways in which myths about law are formed, and how there is inevitably a constitutive power aspect to this myth making. At the same time they explore to what extent law itself creates and sustains myths. This line of enquiry is taken from a wide range of viewpoints and thus offers a unique approach to the question of relationship between theory and practice. The book critically assesses the public’s level of legal, psychological and social awareness in relation to their knowledge of law and deviant behaviour. This line of enquiry is taken from a wide range of viewpoints and thus offers a unique approach to the question of relationship between theory and practice. The book covers both empirical studies and theoretical engagements in the area of legal understanding and this affords a very comprehensive coverage of the area, and addressing issues of gender and class, as well as considering psychological material. It brings together a range of academics and practitioners and asks questions and address contemporary issues relating to the relationship between law and popular beliefs.

Women before the court: Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American World, 1600–1800 is a ground-breaking study of women in Britain and British America. Drawing from archival sources from both sides of the Atlantic, it offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women’s legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American law. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women’s legal knowledge, and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, and husbands and wives. While in the seventeenth century these relationships had been defined by mutual obligations of authority and submission, the economic and legal developments of the eighteenth century gave women increasing opportunities to break the patriarchal mould. This book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, students of legal history and to laypeople interested in how women navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them in the past. It is packed with fascinating (and sometimes shocking) stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. This study adds a valuable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.