Abstract
This Chapter analyzes three interpretations of what it is that people claim, when they claim equal access to justice for all: equal legal protection, equal standing in open court and equal agency in legal affairs. It then speculates on educated conjectures on the practical implications of grounding one’s commitment to equal access to justice on either one of such interpretations.
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Notes
- 1.
Hayek (1944), p. 80. I am putting together two things, which should be kept apart (conceptually at least)—namely, the idea that public decision-making should be predictable and the idea that there should be some correspondence between the ‘rules as announced’ and the ‘rules as administered’. For a systematic liar, there isn’t much correspondence between what he announces and what they do (or have done in the past). And yet, their action could still be (sadly for him, in some sense), very predictable, however. But there is an important connection between the two concepts, which might anticipate a theme, which I develop in the following pages. Since we are not interested in predictability from a god’s eye perspective on the legal system as a whole, but in predictability as assessed from the contingent position of differently situated individuals, then the two concepts begin to converge somewhat. We make ourselves predictable to others, by making our words match our dealings. Think of the systematic liar again: we can predict them, if we know them very well (and we know the kind of liar that he is—i.e.: we know the mechanism through which their words deviate from their beliefs). But if we want strangers to be able to predict them, then the only option would seem to be to make them stop all the lying.
- 2.
Fuller (1969), p. 69.
- 3.
See Bentham’s clear formulation in the Principles of Judicial Procedure (1843): “For in jurisprudence, the laws termed adjective, can no more exist without the laws termed substantive, than in grammar a noun termed adjective, can present a distinct idea without the help of a noun of the substantive class, conjoined with it”.
- 4.
See, for example, the various indexes elaborated within the so-called World Justice Project, WJP Rule of Law Index 2017–2018, at https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index/wjp-rule-law-index-2017%E2%80%932018.
- 5.
For a comparative analysis of standing rules in Europe see the essays collected in Eliantonio et al. (2012).
- 6.
- 7.
See, for a sample of different perspectives on the problem of aggregating claims, and representing collective interests through litigation, Hensler et al. (2016), Bone (2012), Lahav (2011), Marcus (2011), Resnik (2011), Lindblom (2009), Redish (2009), Nagareda (2008), Giannini (2007), Verbic (2007), Oteiza (2006), Epstein (2003), Fiss (2003), Lahav (2003), Taruffo (2001), Giussani (1996), Hazard et al. (1988), Rosenberg (1987), Yeazell (1987), Cappelletti (1979), Miller (1979), Fuller (1978), Bell (1976) and Galanter (1974); For further analysis, see Chap. 10 of this book.
- 8.
For a most detailed comparative study on access to Supreme Courts’ adjudication, see Giannini (2016); for general references on the evolution of Supreme Courts’ adjudication in comparative law see the essays collected in van Rhee and Fu (2017). On appeals and means of recourse more generally, see van Rhee and Uzelac (2014).
- 9.
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).
- 10.
- 11.
See, for example, Chayes (1976).
- 12.
See, for example, Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977); Golder v. United Kingdom, 4451/70, ECHR 1, (1975), which are discussed in Chap. 8.
- 13.
I am referring here to Rawls’ characterization in Theory. See Rawls (1971).
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Segatti, M. (2024). Equal Access To Justice: Three Interpretations. In: Equal Access to Justice. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 145. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52939-9_3
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