the bill of rights applies to the states through the fourteenth amendment.
the bill of rights applies to the states through the fourteenth amendment.
the bill of rights applies to the states through this amendment?
the fourteenth amendment
berger also criticizes the argument made by alexander bickel, william van alstyne, and others that the 14th amendment's language was meant to be open-ended in order to give future generations a large amount of discretion in determining how to apply the 14th amendment's principles to their own times. berger argues that the "open-ended language" theory lacks any historical basis whatsoever and that, in any case, any intentions that existed but were not disclosed to the american people before they ratified a constitutional amendment certainly have no value and shouldn't be used as a basis for interpreting this amendment. in berger's view, the ideas of substantive due process as well as the incorporation of the bill of rights (against the states) are both contrary to the intent of the framers of the fourteenth amendment. in regards to incorporation of the bill of rights, berger argues that the views of john bingham and jacob howard in regards to this issue were unorthodox (bingham and howard both stated that the 14th amendment would apply the first eight amendments in the bill of rights against the states) and that most republicans in the 39th united states congress (which proposed and passed the 14th amendment) did not share bingham's and howard's views on this issue. as support for his position, berger points out that none of the republicans who spoke about the 14th amendment on the campaign trail leading up to the 1866 elections ever said or even suggested that the 14th amendment would apply any of the amendments in the bill of rights against the states and that court rulings shortly after the 14th amendment's ratification in 1868 continued to hold that the bill of rights was inapplicable against us states (as opposed to the us federal government--against which the bill of rights was always held to be applicable). finally, berger defends the holding in the notorious 1896 case "plessy v. ferguson" and argues that the reason that "plessy has become a symbol of evil[] ... is because we impose 'upon the past a creature of our own imagining' instead of looking to 'contemporaries of the events we are studying.'" berger argues that "plessy merely reiterated what an array of courts had been holding for fifty years"--starting with the 1849 massachusetts supreme court case "roberts v. city of boston" (which upheld the constitutionality of segregated schools in massachusetts).
government by judiciary
section::::litigating fundamental rights.:stages.









































before a court may proceed to consider the issues of substance raised in human rights litigation, it must first consider a series of preliminary, procedural issues.









































section::::litigating fundamental rights.:stages.:procedural issues.









































section::::litigating fundamental rights.:stages.:procedural issues.:application and the principle of avoidance.









































application of the bill of rights concerns the issues of whether and how the bill of rights applies in a legal dispute. the first of these issues (whether the bill of rights applies) raises four questions:









































bullet::::1. who benefits from the bill of rights?









































bullet::::2. who is bound by the bill of rights?
south african constitutional litigation