The Faces of Justice and State Authority: A Comparative Approach to the Legal Process

By Mirjan R. Damaska

Book Overview

A leading legal scholar provides a highly original comparative analysis of how justice is administered in legal systems around the world and of the profound and often puzzling changes taking place in civil and criminal procedure. Constructing a conceptual framework of the legal process based on the link between politics and justice, Mirjan R. Damaska provides a new perspective that enables disparate procedural features to emerge as fascinating recognizable patterns.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300051190
• ISBN13: 9780300051193
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

clarifies isses

I should have writen this years ago. I was an administrrative law judge for a stte agency. This can be described as a judicial role in a government (bureucratic) agency.(This has been described as, for the citizen dealing with the government,"where the rubber meets the road".) Most often the bureaucratic pressures overcome the judicial aspect which we brag about to the public. This book can help analyze the issues and alternatives that come up every day. As far as I know no political science scholar nor management expert has commented on these problems. nigel wright schenectady NY nwright@nycap.rr.com

An excellent reference for understanding legal process

This book was a very pleasant surprise in my research on legal process. By resorting to pure models, Damaska presents clear contrasts between the adversarial or reactive justice system and the inquisitional or policy implementing justice system. By focusing on the pure models, the impact of changes in justice systems become easier to analyze. Damaska has a unique ability to make clear in a few sentences what was previously confused. Damaska does not advocate one justice system over another; he simply demonstrates issues that may arise when pure models are altered. As someone involved in the American legal system, Damaska has provided insight into the philosophical workings of our legal system and with that insight, changes in legal procedure particularly are better understood.