To be or not to be self-restraint? The role of the Constitutional Courts in shaping their powers and the consequences on constitutional reform
To be or not to be self-restraint? The role of the Constitutional Courts in shaping their powers and the consequences on constitutional reform

Summary/Abstract: The practice of constitutional courts worldwide reveals the growing importance they have on the evolution of constitutions through jurisprudential interpretation. From the “drawing” of some implicit limits of the amendment of the constitutions, as in the basic structure theory found in some constitutional systems, to the defining the fundamental rights, deduction of the procedures applicable in concrete situations not foreseen by the constituent legislators, or the strict staking of the legislation that we identify in other systems, constitutional courts are increasingly active in saying what the Constitution is. Starting from the concrete example of the Romanian Constitutional Court and its evolution within multilevel constitutionalism specific to the European Union, this study proposes a debate on the interpretation that the Constitutional Courts give to their own powers established by the Constitution. In the framework of the specific relationship between Courts in the European Union, this debate has a particular side, meaning the drawing of the limits of competence between the constitutional courts of the Member States and the Court of Justice of the European Union. However, the debate is of general interest because the observance of the limits of competence of public authorities and, from this perspective, the definition of these limits is a fundamental component of the rule of law. Expanding or not the powers of the constitutional courts and the way to achieve this objective is, in our opinion, a key issue of constitutional reform.

• Details
• Contents