To shed a realist light on court administration and the regulation of judges in liberal-democratic countries, we conduct an empirical study of an organ that has attracted little attention: the Director of Courts in Israelan administrative entity that "manages" the judiciary. In important respects, the Director may be regarded as a regulator of judges, thus assessment of judicial independence in Israel is incomplete without recognizing its presence. The institution of the Director has undergone agencification, which entailed augmentation of its capacities and an evolution in mindset regarding the implementation of these capacities. As a result, its powers, mode of operation, and organization have fundamentally transformed over time, as has the regulatory terrain within which judges conduct their business. By introducing novel indicators for assessment and applying them in an unfamiliar context, this paper offers important theoretical contributions to studies of the regulation and administration of courts and judges, and agencification.

The contemporary debate on emergencies and the state of exception often relies on historical examples. Yet, the most recent discussions on the state of exception (a legal construct that deals with emergencies) also assume its modern inception. This article shows that medieval France formulated its own state of exception, meant to deal with emergencies, based on the legal principle of necessity. This article has two purposes. First, it challenges the historical narrative inherent in the contemporary debate, which assumes the modern inception of the state of exception. Second, it reinforces the trepidation with which many scholars today view the uses and abuses of the state of exception. This article does so by showing that the French crown used and abused the medieval principle of necessity in ways similar to current uses of the state of exception; it served similar purposes. Just as some scholars fear today, the French medieval state of exception often served as a pretext meant to change the legal order, turning the exception into the ordinary. The French crown used the state of exception to enhance its power, and it was central in the long process of building the early-modern French state.

This Article focuses on the overlap and interaction between the doctrine of proportionality and the doctrines used to assess the constitutionality of state violations of the right to equality. The Article has three main contributions to comparative constitutional literature. First, the Article pinpoints the difficulty that arises when courts try to apply the doctrine of proportionality on claimed violations of the right to equality. Analytically, as shown in this Article, the overlap and interaction between these two doctrines is problematic because they are both relational measures between means and ends. Second, this Article categorizes two models adopted by courts in the application of proportionality in the context of the violation of the right to equality. Third, this Article points out that the choice of the model used by each court is relevant to the ongoing discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of proportionality.

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This article uses the registers of the municipal deliberations of Châlons, Reims, and Troyes to analyze citizenship in Champagne in the years 1417–circa 1435. People in these towns practiced citizenship and conceived of citizenship in at least three levels: town citizenship, Champagne citizenship, and French citizenship. Champagne and the towns at times decided their own courses of action, navigating the turbulent waters of the Armagnac-Burgundian conflict and the Franco-English conflict. These conflicts, and Champagne's position(s) in relation to them, allowed and emphasized active and self-conscious civic practices and ideologies in these three towns. These civic practices and ideologies existed not only at the obvious town level and at the traditional Champenois level but also at the greater French level. Such practices and ideologies were highly developed well before the second half of the fifteenth century, when some recent scholarship finds them in other towns in France. Cet article utilise les registres des délibérations municipales de Châlons, Reims et Troyes pour analyser la citoyenneté en Champagne pendant les années 1417–35. Les habitants de ces villes pratiquaient la citoyenneté qu'il concevaient sur au moins trois niveaux : la citoyenneté municipale, la citoyenneté champenoise, et la citoyenneté française. La Champagne et les villes décidaient parfois de leur propre ligne de conduite, naviguant dans les eaux tumultueuses du conflit entre Armagnacs et Bourguignons et du conflit franco-anglais. Ces conflits, et les positions parfois multiples de la Champagne à leur égard, délibérées des pratiques civiques et des idéologies actives et autorisaient et accentuaient dans ces villes. Ces pratiques civiques et idéologies existaient non seulement au niveau superficiel de la ville, ou au niveau traditionnel champenois, mais aussi au niveau supérieur français. Ces pratiques et idéologies ont été fortement développées bien avant la seconde moitié du quinzième siècle, période durant laquelle une récente étude les a retrouvées dans d'autres villes françaises.