¹ Walker, Neil, Juridical Transformation as a Process: A Comment on Stone Sweet, 8 German L.J. 929, 929 (2007).Google Scholar

² Corrias, Luigi, The Legal Theory of the Juridical Coup: Constituent Power Now, 12 German L.J. 1553, 1553 (2011).Google Scholar

³ Sweet, Alex Stone, The Juridical Coup d'État and the Problem of Authority, 8 German L.J. 915 (2007).Google Scholar

⁴ See, e.g., Walker, supra note 1; Gianluigi Palombella, Constitutional Transformations vs. “Juridical” coups d'État. A Comment on Stone Sweet, 8 German L.J. 941 (2007); Wojciech Sadurski, Juridical Coups d'état – all over the place. Comment on “The Juridical Coup d'état and the Problem of Authority” by Alec Stone Sweet, 8 German L. J. 935 (2007).Google Scholar

⁵ Sweet, Alex Stone, Response to Gianluigi Palombella, Wojciech Sadurski and Neil Walker, 8 German L.J. 947 (2007).Google Scholar

⁶ Corrias, supra note 2.Google Scholar

⁷ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 915.Google Scholar

⁸ See id. at 926.Google Scholar

⁹ Walker, supra note 1, at 932.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Corrias, supra note 2.Google Scholar

¹¹ The expression is used, for example, by Hans Lindahl und Simeon McIntosh. See Lindahl, Hans, The Paradox of Constituent Power, 20 Ratio Juris 485, 493 (2007); Simeon McIntosh, Kelsen in the Grenada Court: Essays on Revolutionary Legality 90 (2008); see also Christoph Möllers, Pouvoir Constituant—Constitution—Constitutionalisation, in Principles of European Constitutional Law 169, 171 (Armin von Bogdandy & Jürgen Bast eds., 2d ed. 2009) (“[It is] a rupture that finds its institutional correspondence … in the US in the Revolutionary War of Independence.”)Google Scholar

¹² Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 915.Google Scholar

¹³ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 916.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Id. Google Scholar

¹⁵ Id. Google Scholar

¹⁶ Id. Google Scholar

¹⁷ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 950.Google Scholar

¹⁸ In this sense, see Corrias, supra note 2, at 1569 (“[S]ometimes courts go so far in their interpretation that they radically change what until then counted as ‘established interpretation.'”).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 915.Google Scholar

²⁰ The meaning of that concept has been exemplified by Adolf Julius Merkl. See Merkl, Adolf Julius, Die Rechtseinheit des österreichischen Staates, 37 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 56 (1918).Google Scholar

²¹ Kelsen, Hans, Reine Rechtslehre 204 (2d ed. 1960).Google Scholar

²² Kelsen, Hans, Reine Rechtslehre 66–67, (1st ed. 1934).Google Scholar

²³ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 916.Google Scholar

²⁴ This confusion of constitution and Grundnorm did not go unnoticed. See Palombella, supra note 4, at 942 (“the constitution (or to follow Stone's wording, the Grundnorm) … .”).Google Scholar

²⁵ See supra text accompanying note 15.Google Scholar

²⁶ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 916.Google Scholar

²⁷ See, e.g., Palombella, supra note 4, at 942.Google Scholar

²⁸ Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] Jan. 15, 1958, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 7 (198), 1958 (Ger.).Google Scholar

²⁹ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 919.Google Scholar

³⁰ Case 26/62, NV Algemene Transport- en Expeditie Onderneming van Gend & Loos v. Netherlands Inland Revenue Administration, 1963 E.C.R. 1, 12.Google Scholar

³¹ Case 6/64, Flaminio Costa v E.N.E.L., 1964 E.C.R. 585.Google Scholar

³² Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 924.Google Scholar

³³ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 948.Google Scholar

³⁴ Walker, supra note 1, at 929.Google Scholar

³⁵ For reasons of convenience, I shall follow Stone Sweet's terminology though not without misgivings: For Kelsen, a coup d'état is a subset of a revolution. See Kelsen, supra note 21, at 213. Stone Sweet's coup d'état, by contrast, is, as we shall see, in no Kelsenian sense a revolution.Google Scholar

³⁶ See Merkl, Adolf Julius, Justizirrtum und Rechtswahrheit, 45 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 452 (1925).Google Scholar

³⁷ Id. at 378; cf. Kelsen, supra note 21, at 272–73.Google Scholar

³⁸ Those courts are also the specific subject of the “deep structural question” raised by Stone Sweet as to “whether the constitutional delegation to the judge includes substantive constraints on the judge's decision-making.” Stone Sweet, supra note 3, at 916.Google Scholar

³⁹ See Verdross, Alfred, Völkerrecht 24 (2d ed. 1950). Another interpretation is that while following the law leads to an ideal decision, to deviate from the law leads to a still possible decision. See Kelsen, supra note 21, at 274. But see James W. Harris, Kelsen's Concept of Authority, 36 Cambridge L.J. 353, 358 (1977). Yet another is that while a court may only decide according to the law, it can also decide differently. Theodor Schilling, Artikel 24 Absatz 1 des Grundgesetzes, Artikel 177 des EWG-Vertrags und die Einheit der Rechtsordnung, 29 Der Staat 161, 169–70 (1990).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The notion was coined by Verdross. See Verdross, supra note 39, at 25. I am grateful to Ewald Wiederin and Markus Vasek for this information. A Grenzorgan has the position of the “second organ” in Stone Sweet's generic definition of an authority conflict, the other organ being the constituent or constituted powers. Stone Sweet, supra note 3, at 919.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Merkl, supra note 36, at 379. According to Friedrich Koja, the question “et quis custodiat ipsos custodies“ can be answered, in the case of a Grenzorgan, only by referral to the “open society of constitutional interpreters,” a notion coined by Peter Häberle. See Koja, Friedrich, Der Begriff der Allgemeinen Staatslehre, in Staatsrecht und Staatswissenschaften in Zeiten des Wandels: Festschrift für Ludwig Adamovich zum 60. Geburtstag 244, 274 (Bernd-Christian Funck et al. eds., 1992); Peter Häberle, Die offene Gesellschaft der Verfassungsinterpreten, 1975 Juristenzeitung 297 (1975). A close enough American equivalent would be the phrase “marketplace of ideas,” coined by William Brennan in his concurring opinion to Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 308 (1965).Google Scholar

⁴² Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 922.Google Scholar

⁴³ See 1958 Const. 61-1 (Fr.).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 949.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Case 6/64, Flaminio Costa v E.N.E.L., 1964 E.C.R. 585.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Case C-105/03, Criminal Proceedings Against Maria Pupino, 2005 E.C.R. I-5285.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Lindahl, supra note 11, at 493.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Case 26/62, NV Algemene Transport- en Expeditie Onderneming van Gend & Loos v. Netherlands Inland Revenue Administration, 1963 E.C.R. 1, 12.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Lindahl, supra note 11, at 493.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Kaufmann, Arthur, Über den Zirkelschluβ in der Rechtsfindung, in Festschrift für Wilhelm Gallas zum 70. Geburtstag am 22. Juli 1973, at 7 (Karl Lackner, Heinz Leferenz, Eberhard Schmidt, Jürgen Welp & Ernst A. Wolff eds., 1973).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Engisch, Karl, Logische Studien zur Gesetzesanwendung 15 (1963).Google Scholar

⁵² See, e.g., Kriele, Martin, Theorie der Rechtsgewinnung 197–205 (2d ed. 1976); Friedrich Müller, Juristische Methodik 168 (3d ed. 1989); Marijan Pavcnik, Juristisches Verstehen und Entscheiden: Vom Lebenssachverhalt zur Rechtsentscheidung. Ein Beitrag zur Argumentation im Recht 79–103 (1993).Google Scholar

⁵³ Lindahl, supra note 11, at 493.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 917.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See supra notes 37–38 and accompanying text.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Palombella, supra note 4, at 941 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cf. Lindahl, supra note 11, at 493 n.5.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See sources cited supra note 11.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cf. Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 949.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Republic of Fiji Islands v. Prasad, [2001] FJCA 2; Abu0078.2000s (Mar. 1, 2001), available at http://www.paclii.org/fj/cases/FJCA/2001/2.html.Google Scholar

⁶¹ For more detailed commentary on this decision, see Schilling, Theodor, The Court of Justice's Revolution: Its Effects and the Conditions for Its Consummation. What Europe Can Learn from Fiji, 27 Eur. L. Rev. 445, 455–57 (2002).Google Scholar

⁶² To give an extra-juridical example of a (mere) coup d'état: Hitler's Machtergreifung was no revolution. While it changed the working of the institutions of the Weimar Republic fundamentally, it did not change its Grundnorm: You shall obey the Weimar Constitution and all laws created in a manner prescribed by it, including the Ermächtigungsgesetz.Google Scholar

⁶³ See Hartley, Trevor, The Constitutional Foundations of the European Union, 117 L.Q. Rev. 225, 243 (2001); see also BverfG, July 6, 2010, docket number 2 BvR 2661/06 (Ger.), available at Juris.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Schilling, supra note 62, at 463.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Under a different aspect, Walker sharply distinguishes between those two cumulative criteria. See Walker, supra note 1, at 930.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See id. Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See Tyrer v. United Kingdom, 26 Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) at 31 (1978). See also Hinds v. Attorney General of Barbados, [2002] 1 A.C. 854, 870 (P.C.) [870] (“As it is a living, so must the Constitution be an effective, instrument.”).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See, e.g., BVerfG, July 6, 2010, docket number 2 BvR 2661/06 (Ger.), available at Juris.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ On the doubts connected with the concept of legislative intent, see, for example, Daniel Greenberg, The Nature of Legislative Intention and Its Implications for Legislative Drafting, 27 Statute L. Rev. 15 (2006).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).Google Scholar

⁷¹ This argument, of course, is similar to the one we encountered above when discussing the authority of courts to deviate, in their decisions, from substantive law. See supra text accompanying note 37.Google Scholar

⁷² Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 920.Google Scholar

⁷³ See, e.g., Nipperdey, Hans Carl, Gleicher Lohn der Frau für gleiche Leistung, 3 Recht der Arbeit 121 (1950).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ See, e.g., Bundesarbeitsgericht [BAG] [Federal Labor Court] Dec. 12, 1954, Entscheidungen des Bundesarbeitsgerichts [BAGE] 1 (185) (Ger.); Bundesarbeitsgericht [BAG] [Federal Labor Court] Jan. 15, 1955, Entscheidungen des Bundesarbeitsgerichts [BAGE] 1 (258) (Ger.).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ See, e.g., Ipsen, Hans Peter, Das Verhältnis der europäische Gemeinschaften zum nationalen Recht, in Aktuelle Fragen des europäischen Gemeinschaftsrechts: Gemeinschaftsrecht und nationales Recht, Niederlassungsfreiheit und Rechtsangleichung: Europarechtliches Kolloquium 1–27 (1965). The address was given five days before the judgment in Costa v. E.N.E.L. was handed down. Although it is rather doubtful whether this address has, as the speaker used to claim, decisively influenced the ECJ, it doubtlessly shows that the latter's decision was no bolt from the blue.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ For a wholly different yardstick on the somewhat similar question of whether the European Court of Justice is acting ultra vires, see BVerfG, July 6, 2010, docket number 2 BvR 2661/06 (Ger.), available at Juris (“[T]he Court of Justice has a right to tolerance of error.”).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ See supra notes 75–78 and accompanying text.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 927.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Sadurski, supra note 4, at 937.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Walker, supra note 1, at 93132; Sadurski, supra note 4, at 939; Cossias, supra note 2, at 1569.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Sadurski, supra note 4, at 935; Cossias, supra note2, at 1569.Google Scholar

⁸² Id. at 938.Google Scholar

⁸³ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 948.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Id. Google Scholar

⁸⁵ See supra notes 39–42 and accompanying text.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This is also the answer to Stone Sweet's question why European doctrinal authorities spend a great deal of time asking whether important decisions have been decided correctly. See Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 948.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 917.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Id. at 917, 927; Stone Sweet, supra note 5, at 951.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 952 n.6.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ That question is raised by Corrias. See Corrias, supra note 2, at 1565–66.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 919.Google Scholar

⁹² Sweet, Stone, supra note3, at 922.Google Scholar

⁹³ See, e.g., Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] May 31, 1990, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 159 (195–96), 1990 (Ger.).Google Scholar

⁹⁴ See, e.g., Garlicki, Lech, Constitutional Courts Versus Supreme Courts, 5 Int'l J. Const. L. 44 (2007).Google Scholar

⁹⁵ See Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 927 (“[T]he coup d'état exacerbated the [authority] problem, making its emergence inevitable.”) Still, “visibility” appears more accurately to describe what is going on than “emergence.”Google Scholar

⁹⁶ See Corrias, supra note 2, at 1560.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Stone, Sweet, though, claims that “the individual complaint has been transformed” by the FCC's coup d'état. Stone Sweet, supra note 3, at 920.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Strictly speaking, the “founders” were not involved. The constitutional complaint was first provided for by the Act establishing the Federal Constitutional Court. Gesetz über das Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGG] [Federal Constitutional Court Act], Mar. 12, 1951, BGBl. I at 243 (Ger.). And it was inserted into the constitution only by the 19th Act for Amending the Basic Law. Gesetz zur Änderung des Grundgesetzes [Law Amending Basic Law], Jan. 29, 1969, BGBl. I at 97 (Ger.).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ See Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 923. The CC has continued that practice under the new procedure of the question prioritaire de constitutionnalité. See, e.g., Conseil constitutionnel [CC] [Constitutional Court] decision No. 2010-25DC, Sept. 16, 2010, J.O. 16847 (Fr.).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Certain inroads into that domaine réservé of the Member States appear to be made in the context of the EU's accession to the European Court of Human Rights with the possibility of the prior involvement of the European Court of Justice. Steering Committee for Human Rights, Report to the Committee of Ministers on the Elaboration of Legal Instruments for the Accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights 5 (2011), available at http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/hrpolicy/cddh-ue/CDDH-UE_MeetingReports/CDDH_2011_009_en.pdf.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ See Sweet, Stone, supra note 3, at 926.Google Scholar

¹⁰² See, e.g., Schilling, supra note 61, at 450–53.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Corrias, supra note 2, at 1554–57.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Corrias refers to Emannuel-Joseph Sieyès's What Is the Third Estate ? (1963). Corrias, supra note 2, at 1558.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ See, e.g., Möllers, supra note 11, at 185–88.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ See Kelsen, supra note 22, at 65.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ It is a different question whether a basic law enacted by a usurper merits the term “constitution.” On this question, see Möllers, supra note 11, at 171. Möllers refers to Article 16 of the Déclaration des Droits de l'homme. Id. Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Corrias, supra note 2, at 1560.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Id. at 1561.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Id. at 1560.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Id. at 1557.Google Scholar

¹¹² Id. at 1565. But Stone Sweet argues that “in the three cases identified, the judges did not bother themselves much with legal text or precedent.” Stone Sweet, supra note 5, at 951. In any case, this kind of supposed paradox is inherent at least in all decisions in hard cases. See András Jakab, What Makes a Good Lawyer? Was Magnaud Indeed Such a Good Judge?, 62 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 275, 279 (2007).Google Scholar

¹¹³ See supra notes 39–42 and accompanying text.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Corrias, supra note 2, at 1566.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Republic of Fiji Islands v. Prasad, [2001] FJCA 2; Abu0078.2000s (Mar. 1, 2001), available at http://www.paclii.org/fj/cases/FJCA/2001/2.html.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Lindahl points to a different, temporal, paradox: The act—the judgment—originates a community through the representation of its (fictitious earlier) origin. See Lindahl, supra note 11, at 496. But it is submitted that a revolution in its legal sense does not necessarily—or even regularly—originate a community in this paradoxical way. Rather, a revolution exclusively in its legal sense is best conceptualised as a creatio ex nihilo. The Fiji Court of Appeal had no reason to originate a Fiji community; it existed already. Costa v. E.N.E.L. did not originate a European people which, for the most part, to this day has never heard of it. Hannah Arendt's conception of a revolution may be a useful tool to discuss political revolutions, and indeed the self-constitution of a society. It does not contribute anything to the discussion of a revolution in the legal sense only.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Lindahl, supra note 11, at 495.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ See Schilling, supra note 60, at 458–62. From his different perspective, Lindahl requires that “individuals identify themselves as market citizens.” Lindahl, supra note 11, at 495, 498.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Corrias, supra note 2, at 1570.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Indeed, Woodrow Wilson called the United States Supreme Court “a kind of Constitutional assembly in continuous session.” Hannah Arendt, On Revolution 200 (2d ed. 1990).Google Scholar

¹²¹ Sweet, Stone, supra note 5, at 952.Google Scholar

¹²² See also supra notes 33–42 and accompanying text.Google Scholar

¹²³ See Corrias, supra note 2, at 1569.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ The Fiji Court of Appeal case provides an example for the opposite process. See Republic of Fiji Islands v. Prasad, [2001] FJCA 2; Abu0078.2000s (Mar. 1, 2001), available at http://www.paclii.org/fj/cases/FJCA/2001/2.html.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ The only (three) references by Corrias to Kelsen are in quotations from Stone Sweet. Stone Sweet, supra note 3, at 916.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ See Corrias, supra note 2, at 1569.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ See Merkl, supra note 37, at 375 (“In principle, no action based on an error can be imputed to the State. The apparently erring judge is, in his error, not a judge, i.e., a person applying the law and an organ of the State but a private person. But this need not be the last word.”).Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Contra Merkl, supra note 20, at 206.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ See Corrias, supra note 2, at 1560.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Chaos Theory of Law is the title of at least two legal articles. Sudjito, Chaos Theory of Law, 18 Mimbar Hukum (2006); Andrew W. Hayes, An Introduction to Chaos and Law, 60 UMKC L. Rev. 751 (1992). Here the term is used in an entirely non-technical sense.Google Scholar

¹³¹ See supra notes 75–78 and accompanying text.Google Scholar