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The debate over ‘judicial activism’ has flourished in recent decades, but the term was in fact coined 70 years ago, by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The legal academy has bemoaned the term as perpetually ill-defined, but can this be attributed to its equivocal beginnings on the pages of Fortune magazine? This chapter investigates the circumstances in which the term was produced and the early meanings given to it in scholarly work. It is argued that there was very little effort on the part of legal academics and political scientists to gather a consensus as to definition, or otherwise to treat the terminology with caution, before the term was wrested from the university cloisters and captured by the popular media in the mid-1960s.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of judicial activism as a golden mean approach of judiciary in protecting and promoting human rights from illegitimate interferences of government. With this aim, several case studies have been done on verdicts of higher judiciary in Bangladesh.

This paper is an exploratory case study focused on Bangladesh. The paper is qualitative in nature and based on secondary sources of published facts like books, journal articles and Dhaka Law Reports. Information also gathered through Internet browsing.

Though judiciary is very effective to protect and promote human rights and rule of law in a country through judicial activism or public interest litigation, the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are crucial in Bangladesh. Delay and disposal of cases is one of the great impediments in the process of ensuring human rights in Bangladesh. Besides, negligence in implement the verdict of judiciary and interferences of executive over judiciary is another finding of this paper. Apart from these shortcomings, judicial activism is a very important potential instrument of judiciary to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in Bangladesh.

The major limitation of this paper is it is based on secondary sources of information. It would have more rich if periodical data can be used for comparing theory and practice.

This paper would be helpful for making a policy for overcoming limitations of judicial activism in Bangladesh to protect and promote human rights.

Social awareness can be build-up through NGOs and readers by disseminating and penetrating information of this paper’s findings and recommendations.

This paper would an unique and add new knowledge in the literature of public interest litigation and Human Rights Law in the context of Bangladesh.

This chapter addresses commentary about constitutional law and politics in this current era of a conservative domination of the judiciary.¹ Its primary concern is the different ways in which a working majority on the Court and its judiciary of appointees by Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush might be conservative,² and the different ways in which domination might take place.³ The frame for the chapter is what I call an “indifference thesis” for analyzing constitutional law and politics. Stated boldly, the thesis is that there should be a commentary distinguished by an interpretive attitude that distrusts, and intentionally resists, analysis based on preconceived notions about the strengths and weaknesses of any constitutional law and politics, be it conservative or left-liberal.⁴ Perhaps, to many readers, an indifference thesis for commentary appears methodologically odd, if not politically perverse. Therefore, the first order of business is to try to make the thesis less odd and perverse by explaining its provenance and attributes.⁵

This article examines the four primary discourses of judging that dominate discussion of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its role in the process of European integration. These discourses present sharply contrasting views of what the Court does and what role it plays in the EU's legal system. The article argues that these conflicting discourses are not merely rival depictions of the ECJ, but that they have also influenced the process of European legal integration – and not always in the ways those voicing them intended.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of the judiciary in ensuring legal accountability of government officials and its impact on governance in the context of Bangladesh. Although, the judicial system of Bangladesh comprises Supreme Court, subordinate courts and tribunals. However, this study focuses Supreme Court only to keep the study in a manageable extent.

The study is qualitative in nature and based on content analysis. Dhaka Law Report (DLR), which is a monthly published report on case laws[1] decided by the Supreme Court has been selected as content for this study. Some case laws selected from DLR (2004‐2008) were analyzed using purposive sampling method, with a view to evaluating the effectiveness of judiciary (as an external but formal mechanism of accountability) in accountability of government administration and management and its impact on overall governance.

The most important finding of this paper is that the judiciary is very effective for ensuring legal accountability of government officials, which ultimately contributes to human rights and good governance. However, a major problem found was that until and unless an affected person files a case against a government authority, maintaining the required procedures of judiciary, it (the judiciary) has no scope to settle any disputes. Though there is a provision of Suo Muto (by own initiative) rule of the Supreme Court, this practice is very rare in Bangladesh. Furthermore, the executive is responsible for implementing the verdict of the judiciary. Therefore, if the government has not enough respect for, or does not care to implement judiciary's verdict, justice and rule of law will not be ensured. This study also found some cases like this.

This work does not address detailed issues of governance and is not based on empirical data.

This is a mixed study of judiciary and public administration, which is very rare in Bangladesh. Therefore, it will be brought into line with current practice by the concerned researchers and policy makers in public administration and judiciary.

This paper will be of interest to legal practitioners, policy makers, academicians and those in the field of governance.

Rights constitute a familiar feature of the liberal discourse of judging. This chapter seeks to recast this discourse away from the language of rights by considering two cases where liberals often invoke it: abortion and same-sex marriage. I argue that the presence of rights in American constitutional discourse exacerbates the counter-majoritarian nature of judicial review. We do better to recast the language of judging from an emphasis on protecting rights to an emphasis on making sure that the demos acts on publicly justifiable reasons. In doing so, I proffer a novel analysis of liberal theory's extant commitment to public reason, one that conceptualizes public reason as representing the scope of state power.

The purport of the Money Laundering Decree No. 3 1995 (hereinafter referred to the the Decree) is visible in three perspectives. The first part prohibits money laundering in all its ramifications. The second part stipulates punishments for the various categories of principal and accessory offenders whether individual or body corporate. The final part contains the miscellaneous provision dealing with substantive and ancillary powers vested in the Law Enforcement Agencies for the purpose of the implementation of the intendment of the Decree. In this article, an attempt will be made to analyse and scrutinise the general scope of the Decree, powers conferred therein and the resultant impact of the legitimate and illegitimate trade and the possible undue encroachment on the rights of the citizenry. Limitations will be identified and reforms suggested. Before delving into a detailed examination of the provisions of the Decree, a general introduction as to the meaning and contents would be helpful and necessary.

While many consider court involvement in immigration matters a given, in liberal nation-states, there is actually a substantial degree of variation. This chapter revisits two “critical junctures” in the early immigration histories of Canada and Germany to show that institutions and policy legacies are not just historical backdrop, but actually shaped the strategies of political actors, subsequent institutional configurations, and policy options for long periods of time, thereby revealing unintended consequences, as well as alternative paths that the involvement of the courts (and other actors) could have taken.

This paper aims to investigate the Indian legal and judicial approaches to well-known trademark (WT) by placing special focus on the way the judiciary has striven to foster the regulatory goal of defending the distinctiveness of WT.

The research is based on primary and secondary resources; especially, the paper critically examines the central piece of legislation relevant to WT and analyses and compares a number of important judicial decisions of India.

Despite some limitations, the judicial initiatives reflect an impressive progression towards WT, and given the contemporary commercial imperatives backed up by technological advances, the interconnectedness of economies and global corporisation, such a progression is indispensable.

The research involves only the legal aspects of WT; therefore, the social and economic implication is beyond the scope of it.

Even though the legal and judicial attempts in India have raised an inevitable tension between different competing claims and are in some instances intensely debated, a review of existing resources evidences a series of effective methods and practices where a balance can sensibly be drawn between those claims.