[MGSA-L] Elected Officials and Judges at Michigan

Vassilios Lambropoulos vlambrop at umich.edu
Sat Sep 10 08:00:30 PDT 2011


A Lecture at the University of Michigan

Who Decides in the Last Resort? 
Elected Officials and Judges in Historical Perspective
Nicos C. Alivizatos 
Professor of Law
University of Athens
Partner, Alivizatos-Kiousopoulou and Partners

1080 South University Avenue
1636 International Institute
Thursday, Sept. 15, 4pm
				
The recent deficit crisis has posed once again the question of who decides in last resort on important matters in modern democracies: the executive, bureaucrats, parliament or judges? Beyond its institutional aspects, the question raises important philosophical and moral issues. To what extent can elected officials bind the freedom of forthcoming generations to decide on their own welfare? What are the best institutions to stop elected majorities from endangering their country’s future? Based on precedents drawn from modern European and Greek history, Professor Alivizatos approaches the problem  from both a political and an institutional standpoint. He will argue that the adoption of a balanced budget constitutional amendment, which would necessarily involve judges in the economic decision making process, is not the best way to face problems, which remains deeply political.
Nicos Alivizatos teaches constitutional law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens; was a visiting scholar at Stanford, Princeton, and Oxford; and has been a member of the National Broadcasting Authority (1989-90), Data Protection Authority (1997-2002), European Group of Ethics (2002-2005), and Legal Council of the Bank of Greece (since 2006). He served as the Interim Minister of the Interior of the government of C. Simitis for the general election of  March 7, 2004. He has been practicing law in Athens since 1978 and specializes in public law litigation, in particular property law, media law, law of education, environmental law, and minority rights. He pleads regularly before the Council of State (Greece’s Supreme Administrative Law) and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He has published books and over 65 articles and legal opinions in Greek, English, and French. Professor Alivizatos is a founding member and first General Secretary (1984-1988) of the Union of Greek Constitutional Law Scholars, and member of the Board (since 1979) and President (1999-2002) of the Hellenic League of Human Rights. He is also a columnist for the Athens daily Kathimerini.
Free and open to the public. Co-sponsor: Modern Greek Program

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