One Law for War and Peace? Judicial Review and Emergency Powers between the Norm and the Exception

Abstract

Much is said of the danger to liberty from the Army program for deporting and detaining these citizens of Japanese extraction. But a judicial construction of the due process clause that will sustain this order is a far more subtle blow to liberty than the promulgation of the order itself. A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes.Justice Robert Jackson, dissent, Korematsu v. the United States 1 Homeland security is not a temporary measure just to meet one crisis. Many of the steps we have now been forced to take will become permanent in American life. They represent an understanding of the world as it is, and dangers we must guard against perhaps for decades to come. I think of it as the new normalcy. Vice President Richard Cheney 2Five years after September 11, the troubled relationship between constitutionalism and exceptional emergency powers has become a familiar trope in legal and political theory. Issues such as the legal status of emergencies, the aggrandizement of executive power, and the relative desirability of "norming the exception" are once more on the map. 3 As the above quotations demonstrate (albeit from opposite perspectives), concepts such as emergency powers, the norm, and the exception are not confined to the realm of political philosophy; they are central features of our political world, without which the recent development and prospects of constitutional democracy, in the United States and elsewhere, cannot be fully assessed. 4 If permanent emergency powers are part the "new normalcy" referred to by Vice President Cheney, then it is important to think critically about this central category in political life. This article hopes to contribute to this task by engaging with both the theoretical basis of different understandings of emergencies and the consequences of concrete applications of various models.

Gobierno de emergencia y régimen político en la sociología política de Andrew Arato

“…En términos políticos, la emergencia es una amenaza temporaria al orden jurídico-político que requiere una pronta respuesta. El gobierno de emergencia es la constelación de prácticas, reglas, instituciones formales y materiales con las que cuenta el gobierno para actuar durante la crisis; los poderes de emergencia son aquellas facultades usualmente conferidas al ejecutivo para enfrentar la crisis por un tiempo limitado (Zuckerman 2006).…”

State of exception on a comparative scale. Notes on Argentinian, Chilean and Uruguayan cases throughout the 1950s.

“…31 Por lo tanto, si a ese complejo entramado político-jurídico se le agregan decisiones e interpretaciones inconstitucionales o extra-constitucionales, la excepcionalidad que instauran es aún más amplia y arbitraria. El 31 Con respecto a esto, existen distintos puntos de vista teóricos, desde quienes consideran que todo orden legal se basa en una decisión política y el estado de excepción no es más que la muestra más evidente de ello (Schmitt, 1986); quienes consideran que todo Estado de derecho se funda en una fuerza que lo excede en tanto tal pero que también puede ser apropiada por actores ajenos al Estado, como es el caso de grupos revolucionarios (Agamben, 2007); quienes consideran que todo orden se sustenta en la legitimidad de la ley y que, por tanto, no deben existir atribuciones gubernamentales que habiliten su accionar por fuera de las restricciones de leyes generales (Zuckerman, 2006). En esta oportunidad, nos limitamos a mencionar una constatación histórica que, si bien puede evidenciar afinidad con alguno de los planteos teóricos referidos, no tiene pretensión de dar una resolución al dilema sobre la relación entre estado de derecho y medidas de excepción.…”

Emergency Judgment: Carl Schmitt, John Locke, and the Paradox of Prerogative

“…It is a task that requires a vigilant and critical populace. As Zuckerman (2006, 540) points out, “[w]ell‐designed institutions can help to open and preserve a space for the public sphere to play this role, even during an emergency, but they cannot replace it.” The stability of a liberal constitutional regime depends on citizens who understand themselves as more than just obedient subjects but as political agents who must make judgments concerning the proper exercise of political power under conditions of uncertainty. The most important and most effective restraint on executive discretionary power is not legal but political.…”

“…Seen from an historical perspective, judicial review of emergency powers has actually led to the opposite result. The courts have contributed to a gradual expansion of executive power, normalizing an increasingly authoritarian government (Fisher 1995; Gross 2003; Zuckerman 2006). Since ex parte Milligan , 3 the Supreme Court has understood itself as the ultimate arbiter of emergency powers and the sole guardian of the Constitution.…”