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The "Highest Court" In Federal Systems
( George A. Bermann ) 국제헌법학회, 한국학회 2005 世界憲法硏究 Vol.11 No.2
The courts of last resort within States bear an enormous responsibility for the law, since unless and until the political branches of government have spoken, it is these courts, that ultimately decide what the law means, and it is they who take responsibility for legal coherence within the polity they serve. Of course, even that statement does not go nearly far enough: some - not all - highest courts also determine whether and to what extent decisions taken by the political branches comply with the polity`s basic constitutional precepts and are entitled to be enforced. Such "highest courts" are thus also "constitutional" courts in the fullest sense of that term. My focus is highest courts in federal systems, and federal systems immediately raise threshold definitional issues. First, what is the "highest court" in a federal system? Is it, almost as if definitionally, the highest court at the federal level? Or does it also include (within a sphere that has to be delineated of course) the highest courts at the level of the constituent states? Second, when there happens to be a multiplicity of nominally supreme courts at either the state or the federal level, which court is "the highest" among them? Is it the court or court whose job it is to give authoritative interpretations of legislation (to state what the law is - be it state or federal - and what it means), or is it the court - assuming that a separate one exists at the federal level for these purposes - that authoritatively determines the constitutionality of legislation, if challenged? All this is to say that, as in other areas of human endeavor - notably architecture - form follows function. It is idle to designate a court or courts as "highest" without first identifying the judicial functions to be performed. Thus, in a judicially complex federal system, there can be (a) a highest court and (depending on specialization) possibly several highest courts for the interpretation and understanding of the law of the constituent states. (b) a highest court for determinations of the constitutionality of constituent state law under the state constitution, (c) a highest court and (depending on specialization) possibly several highest courts for the interpretation and understanding of federal law, and (d) a highest court for determinations of the constitutionality of federal law, and possibly also state law, under the federal constitution. It is auspicious, for heuristic purposes, that we are sitting in Germany. But even this laborious catalogue of conceivable highest courts can be further complicated by the possibility of having yet a separate court - on the French Tribunal des Conflits model - whose function is to decide in which order of courts within a complex court system a given case belongs, in the event of conflict over that purely jurisdictional question. If I am correct that there are numerous logically defensible ways in which to organize "supreme" judicial authority within federal systems, the designers of federal constitutions have considerable architectural license. Whatever the drafters or the U.S. Constitution may have originally and specifically intended, they created - or left open - the possibility that centralized in the U.S. Supreme Court would be final authority to determine both the meaning and federal constitutionality of federal law and the federal constitutionality of state law. The further and related, but really not surprising, move that the Supreme Court made was to consider that questions of state vs. federal legislative competence represent constitutional questions and that, as such, their resolution therefore also fell within the Supreme Court`s purview. And so, it is today unquestioned - though it is still not inscribed in the U.S. federal constitutional document - that the Supreme Court would ultimately determine the outer limits of federal legislative authority and state legislative authority vis-a-vis each other. It has, we might say, Kompetenz/Ko
Risk of cancer after low doses of ionising radiation: retrospective cohort study in 15 countries
Cardis, E,Vrijheid, M,Blettner, M,Gilbert, E,Hakama, M,Hill, C,Howe, G,Kaldor, J,Muirhead, C R,Schubauer-Berigan, M,Yoshimura, T,Bermann, F,Cowper, G,Fix, J,Hacker, C,Heinmiller, B,Marshall, M,Thierry BMJ 2005 BMJ Vol.331 No.7508
<P>To provide direct estimates of risk of cancer after protracted low doses of ionising radiation and to strengthen the scientific basis of radiation protection standards for environmental, occupational, and medical diagnostic exposures.</P>