Questions constitutionnelles

Imagine if ex-Presidents were automatic members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
If, that is:
► John Adams had been on the Court that decided Marbury v. Madison, or
► George W. Bush were sitting now, while the Court continues to resolve cases involving post-9/11 policies?
Even ad hoc recusal might seem insufficient to relieve the Court of an unwelcome appearance of potential partiality.
Yet that is the situation in France.

As of right, former Presidents -- today, Valéry Giscard D'Estaing and Jacques Chirac -- serve on the Conseil constitutionnel. Serving along with them are 2 women and 7 additional men, each of whom owes nomination, to a 9-year term, to France's President or to a president of a house of parliament.
Le Monde's just raised questions about that arrangement, suggesting that it may be "obsolete." The Paris-based newspaper also is questioning the absence of any requirement that Conseil members satisfy some standard of judicial competence.
A couple developments have prompted these new questions about the 52-year-old institution:
►1 ex officio member, ex-Président Chirac, remains dogged by a range of legal problems (and see here), some of which were present even during his executive tenure.
► The Conseil is a "constitutional court" now more than ever. As IntLawGrrl Naomi Norberg then posted, it just acquired a judicial review power approaching that which its U.S. counterpart claimed in Marbury: consideration of a citizen's after-the-fact claim of constitutional violation. Since the change took effect in March, the Conseil's constitutional docket has mushroomed. Among the 1st uses of its new power, as Naomi also posted, was a September decision invalidating reforms pushed by the current Président, Nicolas Sarkozy, and enacted, of course, by the parliament.
Time will tell if Le Monde's questions gain traction.

On April 19

On this day in ...
... 1782, what an insider called "'the most Signal Epocha, in the History of a Century'" took place. The insider was John Adams. While living in the Amsterdam house on which still may be found the plaque at right, he'd been trying for 2 years to persuade the Netherlands to recognize the fledgling United States as an independent member of the community of nations. (photo credit) On this day, he succeeded, and became his country's 1st ambassador to the Dutch government. According to the editor of his Adams' papers, Adams -- who'd go on to be the 2d President of the United States -- "believed then and for the remainder of his life that this event was the foremost achievement of his diplomatic career." Dutch aid was essential to the Americans' victory in their war for independence from Britain.

(Prior April 19 posts are here, here, and here)

On January 20

On this day in ...

... 1920 (90 years ago today), the 3-year-old organization known as the National Civil Liberties Bureau, an offshoot of the 5-year-old American Union Against Militarism, "a group of social workers, reform advocates, and academics organized ... in response to the slide of the United States towards the European war," was renamed the American Civil Liberties Bureau, and within months became known as the American Civil Liberties Union. The name change was "intended to signal an expanded mission beyond the support of conscientious and political objectors to American military intervention in Europe." Among the projects within the ACLU's current mission is the John Adams Project. Evocative of the unpopular representation, by the man who would become the 2d U.S. President, of British troops accused in the Boston Massacre, this project aids legal representation for persons detained at Guantánamo.

(Prior January 20 posts are here and here.)

The Story of Rum

(Part 2 of a series; here's Part 1 and Part 3)

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike
The bosun brained with a marlinspike . . .
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o'day in a boozing ken.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Rum and pirates. The image of the two is indelibly linked in our minds, and with good reason. Rum — or Kill Devil, as some not-so-fondly called it — was the drink of choice for pirates, sailors, and other “vagabonds” of the New World. It had the good fortune of being plentiful, cheap, and highly intoxicating. Indeed, the British Navy kept their sailors just this side of blindingly drunk by providing each man with a daily ration of “grog,” which consisted of a quart of water mixed with half a pint of rum, sugar and lime.
Life was difficult in the New World. Rum was a necessary ingredient for making the unpalatable more sweet. For the pirates, sailors and others who scoured the New World, Rum was even sweeter than money. Why take money when you could down a pint of Rum for your trouble? Thus, it was only a matter of time before the spirit became a medium of exchange.
But when Rum became a commodity capable of producing great wealth, bad things soon followed: Wars were fought over Rum; families were ripped apart because of Rum; and centuries of slavery and bondage in the Caribbean occurred because of Rum.
It is surprising how effectively the dark history of Rum has been covered over. Say the name, and the images conjured up are of lazy, sun-filled days in the Caribbean and of tourists lying under umbrellas sipping mojitos. Yet this intoxicating brew was at least partially responsible for the American Revolution. No less an eminent figure than John Adams admitted as much: "I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses [the precursor to Rum] was an essential ingredient in American independence."
The colonists raged against the vestiges of the British mercantile system that forced them to import molasses exclusively from the British West Indies. The only problem was that Jamaica, Barbados, and the other Caribbean islands of the British Empire, could not produce enough molasses to satisfy the American thirst for Rum. That thirst was nearly insatiable. For example, in just one year, 1770, the white male population of the American colonies (less than 1.7 million) drank 7,517,000 gallons of Rum! The colonists simply ignored British law and sourced their molasses and Rum from islands throughout the Caribbean. Customs and trade officials were bribed to turn the other away while monumental amounts of Rum traversed The Americas. But when the British decided to enforce the law in order to increase their revenues to fight the Spanish, all hell broke loose. Americans loved their Rum, and they were willing to go to war over it!
Perhaps it is easy for Americans to forget their Rum history because we have no permanent markers to commemorate it. Not so in the Caribbean. While driving around in the numerous over-priced Rum tours organized by the cruise ship, I couldn't help but notice these beautiful brick buildings dotting the Caribbean landscape. The stood out against the gaily-painted cement and wooden structures typical of Caribbean architecture. I soon discovered the brick buildings had a special story to tell, one that is intimately connected with Rum. It turns out that en route to the Caribbean, the British used the bricks as ballast in order to balance out their ships weighted down with slaves and other necessities. But once the ships arrived in the Caribbean, the bricks were no longer needed. They were discarded in favor of Rum.
Ever resourceful, Caribbean men and women used the bricks to create structures of great beauty.

*pic is of a fort in Antigua

'Remember the Ladies'

As the United States celebrates the Declaration of Independence proclaimed 231 years ago, we pay homage to a Revolutionary woman, Abigail Adams (left). She managed the household in Braintree, Massachusetts, while her husband John, who would become the United States' 2d President, worked at politics and diplomacy; indeed, she accompanied him abroad to diplomatic posts in Paris and London. In 1825 she gave birth to their son, John Quincy, who would be the United States' 8th Secretary of State and 6th President.

Abigail is renowned for urging her husband, in a letter written March 31, 1776, just months before the Declaration, "Remember the Ladies":

...-I long to hear that you have declared an independancy-and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex.
Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
....
Adieu. I need not say how much I am Your ever faithfull Friend.

Alas, John replied as if she'd written in jest. It would require the work of generations before the equality Abigail Adams sought could be realized.