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.

On 3 November 2009 the Czech Constitutional Court gave its second ruling within a year on the Treaty of Lisbon. The Court squarely rejected the complaints against the Treaty. For scholarship the most interesting characteristic of the ruling is the way the Court distanced itself from the Lissabon-Urteil of the Bundesverfassungsgericht in such unequivocal terms that the judgment's central passages deserve a place in this issue, even though we only dispose of a provisional translation by Jan Komárek and cannot make comments available yet. As it did in the previous judgment on the Lisbon Treaty of 28 November 2008, the Czech Court again belies the established idea that eastern European constitutional courts take the Bundesverfassungsgericht as their guide.

German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – Overview of earlier case-law – Analysis of the judgment – Comparison with earlier case-law – The Court's reference to sovereignty – The concept of democratic legitimacy – Participation of the German Parliament – Transformation of the EU into a state – Creeping evisceration of state legislative authority – Assessment of the judgment

German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – ‘Identity’ key word of the Lissabon-Urteil – The national identity clause in the current Union Treaty – Nation: people and state; diachronic and synchronic identity – Constitutional patriotism – The national identity clause in the Lisbon Union Treaty – Volksidentität and state identity – Verfassungsidentität: diachronic identity – Identité constitutionnelle de la France: synchronic identity – confidence and diffidence in the Union

German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – Continuing sovereignty of member states under the EU Treaty – Extended constitutional limits to European integration (‘eternity clause’) under German Constitution, but these are not violated by Lisbon Treaty – Composition of European Parliament does not satisfy fundamental requirement of democracy but does not violate German Constitution since EU is not a state – Critical assessment of conceptual foundations of decision

German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – Analysis of inconsistencies – Differences between the EU and a state – Sovereignty of the member states and Kompetenz-Kompetenz – Argument for a relative concept of sovereignty – Sovereignty and the right to withdraw – Critical analysis of BVerfG's assessment of the EU's democratic deficit and denial of the importance of the European Parliament

The position of EU law in the national legal order – Precedence of EU law – Relationship between legal orders – Foundation of precedence – Autonomous precedence v. precedence based on national constitutional law – The concept of an integrated or composed legal order as a false paradigm – The value of constitutional pluralism to explain the relationship between EU law and national law

Two interpretations of constitutional history: product of chance or of design – Written v. unwritten constitutions – Political and historical backdrop of constitutional development – Evolution of interpretation of specific constitutional texts – Chances of a global constitution

The European Court of Human Rights' conception of democracy rather thick, inclusive – Increasing number of complaints of violations of Article 3 of the First Protocol – Requirements of this provision that have to be complied with still thin – Limitation clauses of Article 11 to be interpreted strictly – Court's response to Islamic political parties and movements – Requirements with respect to the governance and politics of the States Parties should become stricter – Level of tolerance of religion in the public domain ought to increase – Need for more guidance from the Court not just an academic discussion

Montesquieu's lessons for modern comparative constitutional law – The Spirit of the Laws – The textual bias of normative constitutionalism – The utility of other disciplines to comparative constitutional law – Constitutions as more than mere texts