Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Majoritarian Democracy and Minoritarian Constitutionalism
- 3 From Majoritarian to Deliberative Theories of Constitutional Democracy
- 4 Deliberative Democracy and Substantive Constitutionalism
- 5 Disagreement and the Constitution of Democracy
- 6 The Seducements of Juristic Discourse as Democratic Deliberation
- 7 Constitutionalism as the Procedural Structuring of Deliberative Democracy
- 8 The Institutions of Constitutional Review I: Design Problems and Judicial Review
- 9 The Institutions of Constitutional Review II: Horizontal Dispersal and Vertical Empowerment
- Bibliography
- Index
- Table of Cases
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Majoritarian Democracy and Minoritarian Constitutionalism
- 3 From Majoritarian to Deliberative Theories of Constitutional Democracy
- 4 Deliberative Democracy and Substantive Constitutionalism
- 5 Disagreement and the Constitution of Democracy
- 6 The Seducements of Juristic Discourse as Democratic Deliberation
- 7 Constitutionalism as the Procedural Structuring of Deliberative Democracy
- 8 The Institutions of Constitutional Review I: Design Problems and Judicial Review
- 9 The Institutions of Constitutional Review II: Horizontal Dispersal and Vertical Empowerment
- Bibliography
- Index
- Table of Cases
Summary
Is judicial review democratic or antidemocratic, constitutional or anticonstitutional? Should electorally unaccountable judges in a constitutional democracy be able to declare unconstitutional, and so overturn, the laws and decisions made through ordinary democratic political processes? At its most basic, this problem of where to place the powers of constitutional review appears to revolve around fundamental tensions between two of our most important political ideals – constitutionalism and democracy – and between various ways of realizing these ideals in political institutions and practices. If courts perform constitutional review, how can this be squared with democratic ideals? How can the people be sovereign if their direct representatives can't make the laws that the people demand? Alternatively, how can the democratic process be kept fair and regular without constitutional controls on elected politicians? Wouldn't constitutionally unhindered officials attend only to the demands of majority preferences at the expense of the rights of individuals and minorities? Can the distinction between ordinary law and the higher law of the constitution be maintained over time if elected politicians are responsible for both? Can the distinction between making law and applying law be maintained over time if judges do both in their role as expositors of the constitution? Should the constitution be a part of the political process, or an external check on that process? And, finally, who decides: who decides what the scope of constitutional law is, who decides what a constitution means, who decides whether ordinary laws violate the constitution?
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007