Courts are sometimes called upon to review a law or some other official act of government to determine its constitutionality, its reasonableness, rationality, or its compatibility with fundamental principles of justice. In some jurisdictions, this power of judicial review includes the ability to ‘strike down’ or nullify a law duly passed by a legislature body. This article examines this practice and various criticisms of it, including the charge that it is fundamentally undemocratic. The focus is on the powerful critique mounted (...) by Jeremy Waldron, the foremost philosophical opponent of judicial review. (shrink)

This paper is part of a broader argument that seeks to offer a justification for political authority. It aims to investigate the role of truth in political argument and to place the problem of reasonable disagreement. The argument focuses on the possibility of political deliberation, that figures as a stage of political decision-making. It has to do with a confrontation between incompatible substantive beliefs which, however, all seem to be reasonable. How can citizens holding incompatible beliefs engage in an enterprise (...) of justifying them to one another? That is the question. (shrink)

El trabajo reconstruye y analiza críticamente la respuesta de Jeremy Waldron a importantes problemas sobre política y derecho, justicia y autoridad. Waldron reivindica al mismo tiempo una tesis no escéptica sobre la existencia los derechos morales-políticos, una tesis escéptica sobre la existencia de procedimientos epistémicos superiores para identificarlos, y una tesis positiva sobre la legitimidad política. El trabajo argumenta que su respuesta solo resulta consistente si se añade un cuarto vértice: el presupuesto de “igualdad de agencia y capacidad epistémica” en (...) los portadores de derechos. Pero su introducción requiere abandonar y redefinir dos de los otros elementos, lo que conduce finalmente a las respuestas típicas del deliberativismo epistémico. Las críticas de Waldron a la revisión judicial se reinterpretan sobre esa nueva base. (shrink)

. The purpose of this essay is to argue that considerations of fairness play an essential role in the justification of democratic decision procedures. The first part argues that considerations of fairness form part of a practical authority's legitimacy, and that in the political context, those considerations of fairness entail a principle of equal distribution of political power. Subsequently, the article elaborates on the kind of equality which is required in democratic procedures, arguing that different principles of equality should apply (...) to the deliberation and the decision stages of democracy. Finally, the article concludes with a few sketchy remarks on the possible relations between considerations of fairness and soundness of democratic procedures. (shrink)

This paper is part of a broader argument that seeks to offer a justification for political authority. It aims to investigate the role of truth in political argument and to place the problem of reasonable disagreement. The argument focuses on the possibility of political deliberation, that figures as a stage of political decision‐making. It has to do with a confrontation between incompatible substantive beliefs which, however, all seem to be reasonable. How can citizens holding incompatible beliefs engage in an enterprise (...) of justifying them to one another? That is the question. (shrink)