[Hamp-law] Upcoming Talk: Judges for Democracy in Latin Europe and Latin America

[Flavio Risech]

In conjunction with the UMass Latin American Graduate Students 
Organization, the UMass Law & Society Initiative is proud to welcome 
Professor Lisa Hilbink of the University of Minnesota Department of 
Political Science.  Her talk, "Politicizing Law to Liberalize 
Politics: Judges for Democracy in Latin Europe and Latin America," 
will take place in 301 Gordon Hall on April 27th from 4:00 to 5:30 
p.m.  Gordon Hall is located at 418 N. Pleasant Street in Amherst.


Talk summary:
In recent years, democratic activists in countries around the globe 
have increasingly turned to judges to uphold the rights and rule of 
law principles now thought to be integral to the health and 
stability, and perhaps even emergence, of democratic regimes. Yet 
theorists remain far from understanding when and why judges will 
prove willing and able to live up to such expectations. The 
traditional legalist view is that to support both the rule of law and 
democracy, judges must remain apolitical. Based on in-depth research 
on judicial behavior under democratic and authoritarian regimes in 
Chile, Hilbink challenges this view, arguing not simply that judicial 
apoliticism is impossible, but that a construction of the judicial 
role as apolitical discourages precisely the attitudes and practices 
necessary for judges to take stands in defense of rights and the rule 
of law. As it so happens, this view is shared by a transnational 
movement of judges in civil law countries who call themselves "Judges 
for Democracy." Hilbink will discuss her comparative research on 
these groups in Latin America and Latin Europe, focusing in 
particular on how such a group was willing and able to mobilize in 
Spain, beginning in the late 1960s, but has not gained any traction 
in Chile.


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