Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution.(Book review)

Yale Law Journal, May, 2006 by Gewirtz, Paul

Now in his twelfth year as a Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Breyer has written an important book, Active Liberty, (1) which crystallizes a fundamental set of beliefs about the American Constitution and his role as a Justice. Taking Active Liberty as the entry point, this piece places Breyer's book in the wider context of his judicial opinions and activities as a Justice--and, as such, seeks to provide a preliminary sketch of Breyer's distinctive place in American law today.

I. VOICE

Active Liberty emphasizes one theme that Breyer says runs through our primal document and that should help guide how we determine its meaning in a wide variety of cases: the idea of democratic participation. Breyer argues that our Constitution embodies not only a...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.