Responsive Judicial Review: Democracy and Dysfunction in the Modern Age (OUP, 2023) - Rosalind Dixon

HKU CCPL Zoom Webinar Book Talk:
Responsive Judicial Review: Democracy and Dysfunction in the Modern Age (OUP 2023)
with the author - Rosalind Dixon

9 MAY 2023 (TUE) 17:30-19:00 (HK TIME)

Democratic dysfunction can arise in both 'at risk' and well-functioning constitutional systems. It can threaten a system's responsiveness to both minority rights claims and majoritarian constitutional understandings. Responsive Judicial Review aims to counter this dysfunction by using examples from both the global north and global south, including leading constitutional courts in the US, UK, Canada, India, South Africa, and Colombia, as well as select aspects of the constitutional jurisprudence of courts in Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and Korea. In this book, Dixon argues that courts should adopt a sufficiently 'dialogic' approach to countering relevant democratic blockages and look for ways to increase the actual and perceived legitimacy of their decisions—through careful choices about their framing, and the timing and selection of cases. Dixon further explores the ways that this translates into the embracing of a 'weakened' approach to judicial finality, compared to the traditional US-model of judicial supremacy, as well as a nuanced approach to the making of judicial implications, a 'calibrated' approach to judicial scrutiny or judgments about proportionality, and an embrace of 'weak – strong' rather than wholly weak or strong judicial remedies.

AUTHOR:
Rosalind Dixon, Scientia Professor of Law, University of New South Wales

DISCUSSANTS:
Po Jen Yap, Professor of Law, HKU

Dinesha Samararatne, Professor of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

CHAIR:
Rehan Abeyratne, Associate Professor of Law, CUHK

This webinar was organized by the Centre for Comparative and Public Law, HKU and was held via Zoom Meeting.