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The Juridical Coup d'État and the Problem of Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Alec Stone Sweet

Extract

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This essay is a true working paper, a work-in-progress that raises a set of questions that I am not yet sure how to answer. The questions are not unknown; indeed, they lurk in the shadows of scholarly discourse on the three systems I will examine. They are, however, often ignored in research and commentary on the constitutional law, and they have never been the focus of comparative inquiry. I nonetheless will argue that the answers one gives to them will bear directly on how we should understand the nature, evolution, and political (i.e., normative) legitimacy of legal systems.

Type
Articles: Special Issue
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 10: Special issue – ‘Coup d'état in the courtroom’ , 01 October 2007 , pp. 915 - 927
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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5 There are important cases outside of Europe that would count, including the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions to enforce the Federal Bill of Rights against the States, in cases that would otherwise be governed entirely by state law.Google Scholar

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15 Indeed, the intensity of the scholarly debate about shows no sign of relenting; see Diederichsen, Uwe, Das Bundesverfassungsgericht als oberstes Zivilgericht – ein Lehrstück der juristichen Methodenlehre, in Archiv Für die civilistische Praxis 171 (1998); Claus-Wilhelm, Grunderechte und Privatrecht – eine Zwischenbilanz (1999).Google Scholar

16 Alexy (note 12), postscript.Google Scholar

17 The gaps in constitutional control that remain can be important in certain cases; see Faller, Hans-Joachim, Bundesverfassungsgericht und Bundesgerichtshof, in 115 Archiv des Öffentlichen Rechts 189-92 (1990).Google Scholar

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19 Stone Sweet (note 9), chapter 2.Google Scholar

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24 Art. 234 connects the ECJ and the national courts through a preliminary reference procedure, that is similar to the mechanism at the heart of German concrete review.Google Scholar

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27 Malcolm Jarvis, The Application of EC Law by National Courts, (1998); Stone Sweet chapter 3-4.Google Scholar

28 By a “functional defense,” I mean a normative evaluation of a judicial ruling in view of the purported benefits it will provide to society; the good provided may be moral, economic, political, legal, and so on. In each of my three cases, it is the functional defense of the juridical coup that counts in the mainstream scholarly discourse on the matter, not the doctrinal deduction.Google Scholar

29 Garlicki, Lech, Constitutional Courts versus Supreme Courts, 5 Int'l J. Con. L. 44 (2007).Google Scholar

30 Stone Sweet (note 9).Google Scholar