Soudcokraté, zachránci a byrokrati - Soudy a soudci v USA, Izraeli a České republice – Píša Radek (2019)

The role of courts is often the subject of exceptionally sharp debates in the Czech environment. Entire courts or individual judges are sometimes criticized for their decisions, while at other times they are uncritically praised. Both expert and popular debates often resemble descriptive summaries of case law, whether with a positive or negative connotation. This book attempts to avoid summaries of case law and presents a more complete view of the role of courts in three as different democratic countries as possible: the United States, Israel, and the Czech Republic. From this perspective, judges do not stand isolated from society but are inevitably a part of it. The current power of the courts is most closely related to the degree of fragmentation of the party system in the given country. When there is a clear majority consensus, the power of the courts decreases, while it increases with a fragmented political landscape. In addition to addressing specific empirical questions, the book seeks to describe a broader conceptual framework. According to this framework, people are limited by human imagination when addressing constitutional issues, just as in other human activities. Limited human imagination can create an otherwise unjustified impression of achieving the best possible constitutional systems. Such a system may then be defended by its supporters at all costs, even at...