Marx‘s famous phrase holds that history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.“ The phrase seems apt for the two Constituent Assemblies in Venezuela over the past twenty years: Hugo Chavez‘s in 1999 and Nicolas Maduro‘s in 2017. While constitution-making moments are sometimes romanticized as the high point of democratic constitutionalism,...
Tag: <span>David Landau</span>
Constitutional Backsliding: Colombia
Recent scholarship has highlighted the theoretical possibility and examples of the tools of constitutional change being used “abusively,“ in order to erode the democratic order. This chapter will explore the experience of constitutional backsliding in Colombia, and the response to those efforts by the Colombian Constitutional Court and other political actors. The chapter will explain...
Response to The Alchemists book
This response will be based on David Landau‘s expertise in the area of constitution‐building and democracy‐building, and on constitutional courts in particular. Prof. Landau has already read the book in full and provided a blurb on the book’s Cambridge Press webpages stating: “Comparative constitutionalists, political scientists, and policymakers have recently shown great faith in the...
Abusive Judicial Review
Much recent work has focused on the ways in which liberal democratic constitutionalism can be eroded from within, including by manipulating law and the tools of constitutional change. Courts are often seen as an indispensable protection for a democratic constitutional order, and there are indeed examples of courts guarding against abusive forms of constitutional and...