{"id":2275,"date":"2024-10-28T20:16:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T00:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-issue-2\/a-critical-take-on-separation-of-powers-formalism\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:11:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:30","slug":"a-critical-take-on-separation-of-powers-formalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-issue-2\/a-critical-take-on-separation-of-powers-formalism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Critical Take on Separation-of-Powers Formalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Formalism has come to dominate both legal scholarship and judicial decisionmaking that bears on the separation of powers. Today\u2019s constitutional law\u00a0scholars and the Supreme Court characterize formalism\u2019s preferred interpretive\u00a0methodologies<span class=\"s1\">\u2014<\/span>originalism and textualism<span class=\"s1\">\u2014<\/span>as rigorous and reliable, and\u00a0argue that these approaches can serve progressive aims. This invited symposium contribution considers the value of these formalist approaches from the\u00a0perspective of critical legal theory. First, this essay observes that originalism and textualism fall short of neutrality, objectivity and determinacy, thus reinforcing critical legal studies\u2019 skepticism of formalism. In addition, this piece\u00a0suggests that these interpretive methods are inconsistent with critical legal studies\u2019 emphasis on social change. Notably, this piece continues the author\u2019s work\u00a0of integrating the insights of critical theory into structural constitutionalism\u00a0and administrative law.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2024\/10\/GT-GLPP240026.pdf\">Continue reading.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Formalism has come to dominate both legal scholarship and judicial decisionmaking that bears on the separation of powers. Today\u2019s constitutional law\u00a0scholars and the Supreme Court characterize formalism\u2019s preferred interpretive\u00a0methodologies\u2014originalism and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10127,"featured_media":0,"parent":2080,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-2275","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2351,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2275\/revisions\/2351"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}