By Melissa Schwartzberg

Considering historic Athens, democrats have taken delight of their strength and inclination to alter their legislation, but they've got additionally sought to counter this skill via developing immutable legislation. In Democracy and felony swap, Melissa Schwartzberg argues that enhancing legislations is a basic and tasty democratic task. opposed to those that might protect using “entrenchment clauses” to guard key constitutional provisions from revision, Schwartzberg seeks to reveal traditionally the strategic or even unjust reasons unamendable legislation have quite often served, and to focus on the regrettable effects that entrenchment can have for democracies at the present time. Drawing on historic proof, classical political proposal, and modern constitutional and democratic conception, Democracy and felony swap reexamines the connection among democracy and the rule of thumb of legislation from a brand new, and sometimes brilliant, set of vantage issues.

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Yet the need to ensure the institutional preconditions of democracy does 25 26 22 See, for example, Holmes and Sunstein (1995: 297). Holmes and Sunstein (1995: 297). 18:1 P1: SBT 0521866529c01 CUNY706/Schwartzberg 0 521 86652 9 Printer: cupusbw February 1, 2007 Introduction not require a turn toward entrenchment. To adopt Habermas’ language, the co-originality of democracy and rights – that democracy and rights originate simultaneously, and that rights both enable the conditions of and are given shape through the democratic process – does not require entrenchment.

Yet the need to ensure the institutional preconditions of democracy does 25 26 22 See, for example, Holmes and Sunstein (1995: 297). Holmes and Sunstein (1995: 297). 18:1 P1: SBT 0521866529c01 CUNY706/Schwartzberg 0 521 86652 9 Printer: cupusbw February 1, 2007 Introduction not require a turn toward entrenchment. To adopt Habermas’ language, the co-originality of democracy and rights – that democracy and rights originate simultaneously, and that rights both enable the conditions of and are given shape through the democratic process – does not require entrenchment.

10 Pericles introduced pay for those serving in the jury courts (dikasteria), which Aristotle recognized as a democratic move inasmuch as it included those who would otherwise lose wages and would attract the impoverished more generally (Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians [hereafter, Ath. ], XXVII; Politics, VI, 2); members of the Assembly were not paid in the fifth century, but magistrates and Council members were. The jury courts heard dokimasiai, prospective reviews of one’s eligibility to hold office in the polis (but not one’s competence), and euthynai, retrospective renderings of accounts, of magistrates.

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