<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From the perspective of U.S. influence, this text analyses the history of administrative jurisdiction, starting from the 19th Century, in the 19 Latin American countries of Iberian origin (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela). The analysis includes the U.S. unified judicial system (generalized courts) and procedural due process of law to decisions by the administrative authorities, the fertile field of primary jurisdiction, which is in conflict with the Continental European tradition firmly established in Latin American administrative law. While setting out the contradictions of administrative jurisdiction in Latin American countries that result from importing rules without putting them in the proper context, the text seeks to identify trends and create perspective to build a model of administrative justice specific to Latin America, drawing on the accumulated experience of the United States and Continental Europe.</abstract>

A Historical Perspective on Administrative Jurisdiction in Latin America: Continental European Tradition versus U.S. Influence

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Surnames, introduced to England with the Norman Conquest of 1066, became commonly hereditary from parent to child around the fifteenth century. Yet during that time and beyond, women sometimes retained their birth names at marriage, men sometimes adopted the surnames of their wives, and children and grandchildren adopted the surnames of their mothers or grandmothers. Surnames became closely tied to the concept of property, such that the person with the property was the holder and creator of the family name. That person was more often the man, but not always. As women’s property ownership became more severely restricted over time, these diverse surname practices eventually disappeared. The connections between the operation of the surname as a socio-legal function and property law and practice will be analyzed in this paper. Important in this analysis is the legal recognition of personhood implicit in the concept of property ownership; “legal personhood” for women was minimal during the period in which surnames became most restrictive for women. Yet prior to that, both the property rights and the surname options for women were more expansive, suggesting that the legal identities of women were more developed in earlier centuries and experienced a significant retrenchment in more modern times. The causes and implications of these historical developments will be analyzed.</abstract>

To Have, to Hold, and to Vanquish: Property and Inheritance in the History of Marriage and Surnames

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The aim of this paper is to provide readers with an insight into Marx’s methods as a first step to understanding income tax more generally but with specific reference to Australia’s income tax system. I do this by introducing readers to the ideas about the totality, that is, capitalism, appearance, and form, and the dialectic in Marx’s hands. This will involve looking at income tax as part of the bigger picture of capitalism and understanding that all things are related and changes in one produce changes in all. Appearances can be deceptive, and we need to delve below the surface to understand the reality or essence of income and, hence, of income tax. Dialectics is the study of change. By developing an understanding of the processes of contradiction and change in society, the totality, we can then start to understand income tax and its role in our current society more deeply. To do that, we need to understand the ways of thinking and approaches that Marx and others have used. Only then, armed with the tools that we have uncovered, we can begin the process of cleaning the muck of ages from the windows into the soul of tax and move from the world of appearance to the essence of tax.</abstract>

Cleaning the Muck of Ages from the Windows into the Soul of Tax

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In 21st century Texas, a judge’s decision to recuse from a case is based on a complex set of norms, codes and procedures intended to promote impartiality. For most of the state’s history, however, the sole ground for the removal of a judge from a case was not recusal for bias but disqualification based on rigid conditions set out in the Texas Constitution. This article examines the foundations and emergence of the modern concept of judicial recusal in Texas with the intent to illustrate a shift from rigid constitutional grounds to a more fluid approach based on judicial interpretation of a code of conduct. The author concludes that while Texas disqualification and recusal jurisprudence is conservative and restrained, it remains to be seen whether this restraint can continue unchanged in a post-Caperton era. The Caperton probability of bias standard has become part of the dialogue on recusal and disqualification in Texas, but Caperton-based challenges are unlikely to prevail in the near future because many members of the bench and bar share the belief that the state’s judicial campaign contribution restrictions and recusal jurisprudence create a firewall against violations of the Due Process Clause. The risk, however, is that continued resistance to change may further erode public confidence in existing ethical safeguards and fall short of assuaging concerns that wealthy donors continue to exercise disproportionate influence on the judiciary.</abstract>

The Origins and Development of Judicial Recusal in Texas

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This paper charts the Warren Court’s handling of those convicted for contempt of Congress at the urging of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. An examination of the arguments made in the Court’s various opinions—and by whom—reveals that the outcomes in these cases cannot be explained solely by the changing membership of the Court. Even when there were the votes to support the vigorous denunciations of the McCarthyite congressional investigations that found expression in dissents inspired by Watkins v. United States, the Warren Court took a more measured tone. That more measured tone was an attempt to avoid a repeat of the fractured Court amidst a public backlash that Warren had provoked with Watkins and marked a return to the Court’s pre-Watkins use of formalism to bring about the just result.</abstract>

Recusant Witnesses and the McCarthyite Congressional Investigations

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Qualifications for public office restrict democratic choice, but such restrictions have a long pedigree in many jurisdictions. For example, the U.S. Constitution sets out qualifications for elected federal officials: i.e., Representative, Senator, President, and Vice President. Qualifications for those positions include provisions relating to age, citizenship, and residence. It has been long debated whether these textual qualifications are exclusive (i.e., floors and ceilings) or whether they are merely floors, which can be supplemented by additional qualifications imposed by Congress or by the States.Once again, this issue has become topical. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a prominent candidate in now-ongoing Democratic Party primary elections. These primaries select delegates to a national convention which will choose the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 2016 popular presidential election. It has been alleged that, during her term as Secretary of State, Clinton violated a provision of the federal statute mandating government record keeping. 18 U.S.C. § 2071 provides: “Whoever, having the custody of any … record … willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same … shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”This Article addresses two interesting interpretive challenges posed by Section 2071. First, does Section 2071’s “office under the United States” language reach the presidency? Second, if Section 2071’s “office under the United States” language encompasses the presidency, is the statute constitutional? In other words, does Congress have the power to create additional qualifications for the presidency?</abstract>

Who Can Be President of the United States?: Candidate Hillary Clinton and the Problem of Statutory Qualifications

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This article examines the totalization of private law by public authorities. It compares and contrasts the fate of private law in totalitarian regimes with the role of private law in contemporary, non-totalitarian liberal democracies. It briefly examines the Socialist jurisprudence of the former Soviet Union and its treatment of private law. It offers an explanation why private law might be inimical to the jurisprudence of the Soviet Union and totalitarian regimes more generally. It next examines the totalization of law accomplished by segregationist regimes in the mid-twentieth century, comparing and contrasting those regimes with totalitarian regimes. Then it turns to examine instances of “tactical totalization” in our own day. Examining totalization of law as a jurisprudential, rather than political, phenomenon reveals how the totalization of legal norms can and does occur in liberal democracies, though with substantially different implications than in totalitarian regimes.</abstract>

Strategic and Tactical Totalization in the Totalitarian Epoch

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Systemic (but lawful) political corruption reduces well-being and equity in America. The original form of Madisonian democracy is no longer capable of containing such corruption. Proposals currently on the table to stem corruption are unlikely to be effective and tend to undermine basic rights. This Essay describes a new, but still Madisonian, approach—regulating the output of corrupted legislative and administrative processes, rather than the inputs. Providing for substantive ex post review of direct and delegated legislation would be far more protective of the “general welfare” of the People than other reforms, while no more or less difficult to implement. Supporting an “umpire” branch may be a dominant strategy for elites themselves.</abstract>

“To Promote the General Welfare”: Addressing Political Corruption in America

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British Journal of American Legal Studies

 The British Journal of American Legal Studies is the premier American legal studies journal in Europe. This peer reviewed, cross-disciplinary journal is a bridge between American and European legal scholarship focused on American legal issues. The journal has a theoretical focus, but will occasionally publish articles with a doctrinal or empirical focus that cast light on important issue within the journal's remit. The journal highlights scholarship examining shared intellectual traditions between America, Britain and Europe. Authors whose work draws connections between American, British and European constitutional, political, historical, intellectual ideas and materials informing legal studies are particularly welcome to submit articles to the journal.　   Submissions/information for authors:  Submissions may be made through Scholastica and are typically but not exclusively between 10 - 15, 000 words excluding footnotes. The journal uses Bluebook referencing format.　  The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process.  Target Group   academics and practitioners in the field of constitutional law having relevance to the United States, including human rights, legal and political theory, socio-legal studies and legal history 