This paper performs an institutional analysis of the EU citizens‘ right to petition the European Parliament (EP) and its legal regime under Article 227 TFEU and following the Schönberger judgment of the CJEU. Concerning inter-institutional relations, this right is first appraised from the perspective of the significant ‘human capital’ that was initially invested to prevent...
Tag: <span>TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM</span>
The Platonic Conception of Constitutional Rights
In this paper I present a constitutional interpretative theory, which I term the “Platonic Conception of the Constitution“, and apply it to Israeli constitutionalism. According to this conception the constitutional text is only an approximation – an imperfect shadow – of the ideal constitution. Judges should strive to bridge the gap between the written and...
The Nationalist Challenge to Human Rights Courts: On Resilience and Conflict Management of the ECtHR
International courts find themselves in the center of the current backlash against international law. In most cases, the backlash against international courts manifests itself in severe challenges to the authority of a court in public discourse, through its politicization, and the non-implementation of judgments. Human rights courts as agents of counter-majoritarian interests are particularly prone...
The Lie of Constitutional Governance
This intervention takes up the chapter on the substitution (of political for market constitutionalism) which is played out under the sign of governance. Where in the past the distinction between public law and private law organised the field and demarcated the spheres of public interest and individual freedom respectively, today we confront the pervasive move...
The Limits of Political Rights in China as Seen in Cases
Although the Chinese Constitution includes a comprehensive list of political rights, courts are prohibited from applying fundamental rights in judicial practice. However, this does not mean that judges do not cite fundamental rights in the reasoning part of court decisions. According to the Supreme People‘s Court open access court decision database courts have cited the...
The Right to Justification in EU Security Context
A scholarly debate has recently emerged on the need to conceptualize justice at the EU level. In this debate, justice (and injustice) are seen as the key to understanding the EU project and, as such, as a unifying value of the EU. A connection is then required between the aspiration for justice and that of...
The Redress of Law
This intervention will discuss the introductory chapter of the book and will focus on the space of political conflict and constituent power in constitutional orders almost suffocated by market thinking.
The psychology of constitutional identity jurisprudence
Like other decision-making processes in which human beings are involved, judicial decision-making is subjected to certain biases that run counter the rationality assumption. A particularly visible and far-reaching example of this phenomenon can be found in the jurisprudence of domestic constitutional courts, particularly in the context of their interaction with the CJEU and with constitutional...
What role for pluralism in inter-court relationships? – An explanatory framework
It has been observed in recent years that the relationship between domestic and international courts typically does not follow hierarchical patterns. Therefore, some legal scholars have coined the term ‘pluralism‘ to describe relationships between domestic and international courts in which neither Court accepts the absolute supremacy of another court, but still seeks to establish a...
When 5×4 is not a winning majority: judicial decision-making on unconstitutional constitutional amendments
The main democratic critiques on the strong judicial review tend to disregard the constitutional amendment as a mechanism to mitigate judicial supremacy. For political constitutionalism, supermajority rules do not offer equal treatment, as this rule favors the maintenance of the status quo by making changes more difficult to occur. Underlying this assertion is the belief...