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A Grammar of Public Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Graham Gee  and
Grégoire Webber

Abstract

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The dominant grammar of public law is a product of abstraction that, at times, overemphasizes certainty and simplicity in a search for systematic coherence within the constitution, even where none exists. In contrast, a concern for and with political and legal practice invites a more tentative and exacting grammar, one that necessitates further questioning, resists generalities and appeals instead to a language of “more or less” and “in one sense but not in another” as part of our public law discourse. We seek a practice-oriented grammar that encourages public lawyers to think and to speak politically about the constitution. We draw on works of prominent political constitutionalists to show how they have had varying degrees of success in nurturing a more practice-oriented grammar of public law.

Type
Part I: The Boundaries of the Conception and Practice of Politics within Political Constitutionalism
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 12: Special Issue—Political Constitutions , 01 December 2013 , pp. 2137 - 2155
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by German Law Journal GbR

Footnotes

*

Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, G.D.S.Gee@bham.ac.uk.

**

Department of Law, London School of Economics, G.Webber@lse.ac.uk. For discussion on the ideas explored here, we are grateful to the participants at the workshop on Political Constitutions organized by Marco Goldoni and Chris McCorkindale in June 2012.

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