25 research outputs found
The watchdogs of 'Washminster' â parliamentary scrutiny of executive patronage in the UK
The role of legislatures in scrutinising executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executiveâlegislature dynamics more broadly
Democratic School Desegregation: Lessons from Election Law
Despite their joint relevance to democracy, no article to date has attempted to analyze election law alongside education law. This Article examines the relationship between the doctrinal threads of these bodies of law. From this study, this Article concludes that, while election law is imbued with democratic principles to guide courts and policymakerssuch as the one-person one-vote principle-education law is not guided by any such democratic principles. Additionally, while electoral boundaries are viewed as malleable under federal law, school district boundaries are not. In light of these doctrinal differences, and in light of the :importance of education to democracy, this Article advocates a policy of democratic school desegregation based on a principle focused on reducing socioeconomic isolation in schools. This democratic principle, referred to in this Article as the 60/40 principle, has the ultimate goal of ensuring that no child in the United States attends a school with a low-income student majority. Under this principle, school district boundaries are not sacrosanct and may be adjusted as a last resort to achieve the ideals of democratic school desegregation