On the Lissabon-Urteil: Democracy and a Democratic Paradox

Extract

The Bundesverfassungsgericht was castigated for the Maastricht-Urteil by most European lawyers, especially the Germans among them. But that judgment has placed its stamp on much of the constitutional development of the Union and has allowed theories of constitutional pluralism, polycentrism, multilevel constitutionalism, Verfassungsverbund and the constitution composée to flourish. The German constitutional court is likewise being castigated for its Lissabon-Urteil. Certainly, it has put the questions of democracy, the level at which democracy is to be aggregated and articulated, and the pertaining institutional arrangements in the member states and in the Union higher on the agenda of intellectual and political engagement than they have been over the last decades. Perhaps it will be just as fruitful for European constitutional theory as the Maastricht-Urteil was.