Book contents
- Towering Judges
- Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy
- Towering Judges
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- Introduction: Towering Judges – A Conceptual and Comparative Analysis
- 1 Towering Judges and Global Constitutionalism
- 2 The Landscapes that Towering Judges Tower Over
- 3 Sir Anthony Mason: Towering Over the High Court of Australia
- 4 Lady Hale: A Feminist Towering Judge
- 5 Hugh Kennedy: Ireland’s (Quietly) Towering Nation-Maker
- 6 Judicial Rhetoric of a Liberal Polity: Hong Kong, 1997–2012
- 7 Judicial Minimalism as Towering: Singapore’s Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong
- 8 Nepal’s Most Towering Judge: The Honourable Kalyan Shrestha
- 9 Barak’s Legal Revolutions and What Remains of Them: Authoritarian Abuse of the Judiciary-Empowerment Revolution in Israel
- 10 PN Bhagwati and the Transformation of India’s Judiciary
- 11 Justice Cepeda’s Institution-Building on the Colombian Constitutional Court: A Fusion of the Political and the Legal
- 12 A Towering but Modest Judicial Figure: The Case of Arthur Chaskalson
- 13 Chief Justice Sólyom and the Paradox of “Revolution under the Rule of Law”
- 14 The Socialist Model of Individual Judicial Powers
- 15 The Civil Law Tradition, the Pinochet Constitution, and Judge Eugenio Valenzuela
- 16 Towering versus Collegial Judges: A Comparative Reflection
- Appendix
- Index
15 - The Civil Law Tradition, the Pinochet Constitution, and Judge Eugenio Valenzuela
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2021
- Towering Judges
- Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy
- Towering Judges
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- Introduction: Towering Judges – A Conceptual and Comparative Analysis
- 1 Towering Judges and Global Constitutionalism
- 2 The Landscapes that Towering Judges Tower Over
- 3 Sir Anthony Mason: Towering Over the High Court of Australia
- 4 Lady Hale: A Feminist Towering Judge
- 5 Hugh Kennedy: Ireland’s (Quietly) Towering Nation-Maker
- 6 Judicial Rhetoric of a Liberal Polity: Hong Kong, 1997–2012
- 7 Judicial Minimalism as Towering: Singapore’s Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong
- 8 Nepal’s Most Towering Judge: The Honourable Kalyan Shrestha
- 9 Barak’s Legal Revolutions and What Remains of Them: Authoritarian Abuse of the Judiciary-Empowerment Revolution in Israel
- 10 PN Bhagwati and the Transformation of India’s Judiciary
- 11 Justice Cepeda’s Institution-Building on the Colombian Constitutional Court: A Fusion of the Political and the Legal
- 12 A Towering but Modest Judicial Figure: The Case of Arthur Chaskalson
- 13 Chief Justice Sólyom and the Paradox of “Revolution under the Rule of Law”
- 14 The Socialist Model of Individual Judicial Powers
- 15 The Civil Law Tradition, the Pinochet Constitution, and Judge Eugenio Valenzuela
- 16 Towering versus Collegial Judges: A Comparative Reflection
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
The depersonalization of the courts encouraged by the civil law tradition makes it less likely that judges in those types of jurisdiction will become towering or, at least, makes their influential jurisprudence anonymous or less visible. By exploring the experience of Eugenio Valenzuela, a Chilean judge who served on the Constitutional Court in the 1980s, this chapter shows that, despite the limitations of the civil law tradition, sometimes it is nonetheless possible to identify a towering judge in a civil law country. The author studies how Valenzuela led a group of judges within the Chilean Constitutional Court and succeeded in challenging critical pieces of legislation enacted by the military Junta during the Pinochet dictatorship. By showing how the Valenzuela jurisprudence helped to advance the transition to democracy against the interests of the authoritarian regime, the chapter claims that founding moments in fragile institutional settings of civil law countries may provide an opportunity for a political towering judge to emerge.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Towering JudgesA Comparative Study of Constitutional Judges, pp. 290 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021