“SECESSION AND THE FUTURE OF IRAQ: Should the Kurds, and Others, Be Able to Withdraw to Create Their Own Nations? April 17, 2003 http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20030417_levinson.html
sandy
At 08:11 PM 9/30/2003, you wrote:
absent from the list is
9) federalism
Sanford Levinson wrote:
A news story today indicates that some Iraqis are suggesting that it will
take up to a year to negotiate a new constitution, whereas the
Administration seems to suggest that six months will be enough. For
all of
our ostensible expertise on constitutional issues, do we, as American
constitutional lawyers (who probably, as an empirical matter, have not
engaged in the close study of any non-American constitutional system),
have
anything relevant to say about the optimal amount of time a remarkably
divided, dysfunctional society like Iraq should be expected to take to
draft a new constitution? And, of course, the more volatile question is
whether we, as American constitutional lawyers, have anything relevant to
say about what the new constitution should say. Riding several of my own
hobbyhorses, I'd be interested in knowing how many people on the list
would
advise (or even insist that) the Iraqis adopt the following features
of our
constitution:
1) Article V
2) life tenure for judges (who will be presumed to have the power of
judicial review)
3) the electoral college
4) bicameralism plus a presidential veto
5) a right to bear arms
6) capital punishment as a constitutionally legitimate punishment (see
Amendments V, XIV)
7) the prohibition of an established religion
8) toleration of seditious and/or religious/ethnic "hate speech"
sandy
