Another for the Book Pile: A. Barak on Judging

Even though we are skeptical of judicial power here at Pith & Substance, we admire brave and wise uses of it. For this reason, I've long considered Aharon Barak, the recently departed President of Israel's Supreme Court a judicial hero. There's no doubt that his work and thought intersect closely with our various themes here at P&S - judicial power, thick identity in a liberal nation state, the difficulties of the virtue of the rule of law in a polity threatened by terrorism -- all of these questions have had to be addressed at a practical level by the Israeli judiciary in circumstances of a genuine existential threat.

Without purporting to be an expert, I understand that Israel's court has been influenced by Canadian approaches to the Charter. I suspect that the influence is going to be the other direction as our courts have to grapple increasingly with national security issues we have been fortunate enough to be able to ignore for the most part in the past.

So I'm going to have to read Barak's new book, The Judge in a Democracy. Of course, I have some other reading I have to do in a more practical sense, so it might be a while, but when I get to it, I promise at least one P&S post.

(Via Larry Solum's new site)