The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict: Constitutional Supremacy in Europe before and after the Constitutional Treaty

Abstract:  One of the core constitutional questions for national constitutional courts in the EU in the past decades has been whether to accept the claim made by the Court of Justice that EU law is the supreme law of the land, taking primacy even over conflicting national constitutional provisions. With the inclusion in the recently adopted Constitutional Treaty of a clause explicitly confirming the 'primacy of EU Law' appearances suggest that the EU is about to establish a characteristic of mature, vertically integrated, federal states such as the USA. This article argues that this view is mistaken. It develops a comprehensive jurisprudential framework for addressing constitutional conflicts, 'Constitutionalism Beyond the State' (CBC). CBS detaches the discussion of supremacy and constitutional conflict from a statist framework; provides a jurisprudential account that explains and justifies the highly differentiated, context-sensitive and dynamic set of conflict rules that national courts have in the past adopted; and provides the lacking theoretical basis for the more attractive, but undertheorised sui generis accounts of European constitutional practice that have recently gained ground in the literature. CBS provides a jurisprudentially grounded reconstructive account of why the issue of constitutional conflict is as rich and complicated in Europe as it is and why it is likely to remain so even if the Constitutional Treaty is ratified. The article then goes on to make concrete proposals addressed to national constitutional courts and the Court of Juctise respectively about how, in application of the developed approach, constitutional conflicts ought to be addressed doctrinally. It includes a proposal to read the new 'constitutional identity' clause as authorising Member States as a matter of EU Law to set aside EU Law on constitutional grounds under certain circumstances.     

美国宪法解释:"麦迪逊两难"之消解

在美国宪法解释实践中长期存在着被学者们所称的“麦迪逊之两难”问题,即民主多数统治的自由与少数自由权利之间始终处于一种似乎不可消解的张力之中。不同的学者和法官由于基于各自不同的民主与宪政原则,而在宪法解释的理论与实践中采取了不同的解释方法与立场,主要分属两大宪法解释流派:原意主义和非原意主义。然而,认真考察和分析美国宪法与宪政原意与原则理想,则会得出“麦迪逊之两难”命题不过是一个假命题的结论,因为真正的民主自身包含着自由平等原则。     

欧盟宪治:一种宪政法理学解读

<欧盟宪法条约>在2005年遭遇挫折,原因是多方面的,或许民主的因素不可忽视,当然这还涉及到人们刘欧盟性质、特征以及宪法条约文本的理解.欧盟立宪应当是一个社会互动的过程,包括民众在内的各种社会力量通过谈判达成共识,这样产生的宪法才是一部欧洲人民的宪法,而非仅仅是一部欧洲国家间的宪法,也唯有如此才可能构建新的宪政秩序.而宪政法理学为我们研究欧盟立宪问题提供了概念分析工具.     

刑事影像技术新体系

目的阐述刑事影像领域内影像技术及应用的现状和发展。方法从理论方面研究国内外刑事影像技术文献。结果提出了刑事影像影像技术新的框架体系。结论刑事影像技术三个主要组成部分是影像成像检验、影像分析检验和影像合成演示。     

The impact of South Africa's new constitution on the organization of health services in the post-apartheid era

This essay evaluates the transformation of the health care system in South Africa in the five years following the end of apartheid. This period has witnessed dramatic and wide-ranging changes in the roles of the central and provincial governments as well as many of the same problems related to decentralization as have been seen elsewhere in the world. The importance of effective intergovernmental relations to the creation of a national health system is highlighted. Negotiation. contracting, and coordination skills and mechanisms need to be strengthened to ensure a more effective national health system within a decentralized political system.     

The economic constitution and the political constitution: seeking the common good in the post-national setting

In the post-national setting, the concept of the ‘economic constitution’ has been seen as design template and saviour; whether based on transactional certitude or founded on ordoliberal precepts, the economic constitution is assumed to legitimate economic integration across national borders in the absence of comprehensive political settlement. Nevertheless, recent tensions – not only within the European Union (EU) but also, more strikingly, within the World Trade Organization context – indicate the limits of economic constitutionalism. This article seeks to identify the roots of recent dysfunction within the history and theory of economic constitutionalism. It traces the evolution of an adjudicational economic constitutionalism and its place within the EU legal order, including the new EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and contrasts this vision with the more comprehensive and/or socialized models of economic constitutionalism found not only within the Weimar Republic but also within the post-revolutionary/post-conflict constitutional context. The article also places a major emphasis on theorizing around the apex of economic-constitutional thought, ordoliberalism, but concludes that no concept of the economic constitution can be seen in isolation from its social-political context, or from notions of the common good. To this exact degree, failures in modern economic constitutionalism may derive from a misplaced universalism – a technocratic absolutism that abdicates political responsibility for the common good, locating it instead in an ‘idolatry of the factual’ or a new naturalism of market inevitability.     

作为宪政实践机制的合宪性审查

合宪性审查作为一种宪政实践机制,蕴涵了宪法的“高级法”观念、自然正义、宪法保障、分权与权力理性、宪政民主、人权保障等思想基础,集中展示它的宪政性与现代意义。为此,应当认真对待宪政生活中的合宪性,当前我国的关键问题不在于应否创制,而在于如何创制合宪性审查机制。     

The AIDS Crisis: Constitutional Turning Point?

Book Reviews in This Article:
William J. curran Larry Gostin, and Mary Clark, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Legal and Regulatory Policy .     

宪法学研究范式与宪法学中国化

自托马斯·库恩 196 2年在《科学革命的结构》中提出“范式”概念以后 ,在社会科学的研究中学者们普遍采用了“范式”的概念 ,以寻找研究问题的系统的思考方式与思维框架。库恩认为 ,范式是常规科学所赖以运作和成立的理论基础和实践规范。由于社会现象的复杂性与意识形态性 ,学者们研究某一问题时必然涉及普遍接受和运用的概念、模式、基本的理论框架与研究方法等。宪法学作为社会科学的组成部分 ,在理论研究与实践发展过程中也需要确立共同的“研究范式” ,以保持宪法学理论基础和实践规范的统一。从一般意义上宪法学研究范式涉及本体论、…     

Green Constitutionalism: The Constitutional Protection of Future Generations

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to propose and consider a new constitutional provision that can contribute to the protection of the vital needs of future generations. The proposal I wish to elaborate can be termed the posterity provision, and it has both substantive and procedural elements. The aim of this constitutional provision is twofold. The first is to encourage state authorities to make more future‐oriented deliberations and decisions. The second is to create more public awareness and improve the process of public deliberation about issues affecting near and remote future generations. It is argued that a good case can be made for the proposed reforms compared with alternative substantive constitutional environmental provisions found in existing constitutions and in the literature on legal and political theory. The main reason for this is that the proposed law constitutes a better and more adequate basis for judicial enforcement than the alternatives, which tend to be very vague or unclear. In this connection, I contend that there are both epistemological and moral reasons for introducing constitutional provisions that focus on the protection of critical natural resources essential for meeting the basic physiological needs of future people. It is also argued that the posterity provision can be defended on the basis of central ideas and ideals in recent theory of deliberative democracy.     

German Constitutional Law: The Protection of Civil Liberties

Netherlands International Law Review -     

瑞士宪政制度探析

瑞士是世界上第二个联邦制国家,自1848年制定第一部宪法以来对宪法进行了多次修改,1999年4月瑞士通过了新宪法。经过长期宪政实践,瑞士的联邦制度、直接民权制度、委员会制的联邦委员会制度等日趋完善。这些制度的发展和完善得益于瑞士公民较好的公民权意识,反过来也较好的保护了公民的权力。近年瑞士宪政制度的发展有了一些新趋势,如公民要求强化直接民权、改义务兵役制为自愿兵役制和加入联合国等就是其体现。     

论宪法权利的构造

宪法权利的构造方式有两种,一种是规则构造,一种是原则构造。规则是明确命令,它的应用形式是涵摄,而原则是最优化命令,权衡是它独有的运用方式。原则构造迄今引发了诸多反对意见,最为重要的是对权衡的理性的质疑。本文是对权衡理性的辩护。通过发现和证立隐藏在德国宪法诉讼中合比例审查背后的衡量公式,文章尝试证明权衡是理性的,原则理论就此有能力成为宪法权利的基础学说。     

论宪法救济的原则

在我国,近年来发生了一系列是否需要直接适用宪法给当事人提供救济的案件或者事件。这些案件或者事件中所涉及的适用法律还是适用宪法的问题,引起了学术界的广泛关注和争议。如2001年的齐玉苓诉陈晓琪等侵犯受教育权案、2002年的蒋韬诉中国人民银行成都分行身高歧视案、2003年的孙志刚被收容遣送案、2004年的张先著诉芜湖市人事局拒绝录用案等。一些学者认为,只有直接适用宪法才能给当事人提供有效的救济,一些学者依据立法法的规定甚至直接向全国人大常委会提出对有关的规范性法律文件进行违宪审查的请求。这就涉及到在当事人的权利受到侵害时,在何种情形下应当给受害人提供法律救济,又在何种情形下才应当给受害人提供宪法救济的问题。限于篇幅,本文仅讨论宪法救济的原则。     

The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism

Constitutional discourse has perhaps never been more popular, nor more comprehensively challenged than it is today. The development of new constitutional settlements and languages at state and post-state level has to be balanced against the deepening of a formidable range of sceptical attitudes. These include the claim that constitutionalism remains too state-centered, overstates its capacity to shape political community, exhibits an inherent normative bias against social developments associated with the politics of difference, provides a language easily susceptible to ideological manipulation and, that, consequent upon these challenges, it increasingly represents a fractured and debased conceptual currency. A rehabilitated language of constitutionalism would meet these challenges through a version of constitutional pluralism. Constitutional pluralism recognises that in the post-Westphalian world there exists a range of different constitutional sites and processes configured in a heterarchical rather than a hierarchical pattern, and seeks to develop a number of empirical indices and normative criteria which allow us to understand this emerging configuration and assess the legitimacy of its development.     

宽容:和谐社会的宪政之道

宽容是和谐社会的基本精神。和谐社会的宪政之道首先是宽容之道。宽容的宪政建设要求我们勘正忽视公民基本权利“基本”属性的错误认识,确立宪政民主观的民主思维。     

Translating Justice: The International Organization of Constitutional Courts

What is the international organization of national constitutional courts? This article develops a theoretical framework to analyze this question and tests it empirically with original data of translated opinions. Justices of different nations form an emerging epistemic community, which is congealed due to common practices as well as to competition and selectiveness throughout the judicial career. Opinions translated into English as the lingua franca are pivotal for communication within this epistemic community. Through engaging in a transnational judicial dialogue, and particularly as far as this dialogue concerns legal citations, this community uses international law as a key guide to finding equilibrium solutions at national and international levels. Five sources of international law overwhelmingly dominate. In addition, we find evidence in the collegial game within the different courts for the existence of a transnational epistemic community of Supreme Court justices.