Constitutional Courts and Democratic Values: A European Perspective
Victor Ferreres Comella
Abstract
This book contrasts the European “centralized” constitutional court model, in which one court system is used to adjudicate constitutional questions, with a decentralized model, such as that of the United States, in which courts deal with both constitutional and nonconstitutional questions. The book's systematic exploration of the reasons for and against the creation of constitutional courts is detailed and it offers an ambitious theory to justify the European preference for them. Based on extensive research on eighteen European countries, the book finds that centralized review fits well with t ... More
This book contrasts the European “centralized” constitutional court model, in which one court system is used to adjudicate constitutional questions, with a decentralized model, such as that of the United States, in which courts deal with both constitutional and nonconstitutional questions. The book's systematic exploration of the reasons for and against the creation of constitutional courts is detailed and it offers an ambitious theory to justify the European preference for them. Based on extensive research on eighteen European countries, the book finds that centralized review fits well with the civil law tradition and structures of ordinary adjudication in those countries. It concludes that, while the decentralized model works for the United States, there is more than one way to preserve democratic values and that these values are best preserved in the parliamentary democracies of Europe through constitutional courts.
Keywords:
constitutional questions,
nonconstitutional questions,
constitutional courts,
court system,
centralized review,
civil law,
ordinary adjudication,
democratic values,
parliamentary democracies,
decentralized model
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300148671 |
| Published to Yale Scholarship Online: October 2013 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300148671.001.0001 |
