The politics of constitutional review in France and Europe

Abstract

To the question "Is constitutional review by a Constitutional Court law or politics?" this article responds with a survey of various notions of the "political," providing illustrations drawn from France and Europe and assessing Louis Favoreu's role in French debates on the legitimacy of review. The article elaborates a basic model of constitutional politics, defined as lawmaking processes - legislative, administrative, judicial - that are mediated by constitutional norms and jurisprudence. Such politics register the extent to which constitutional courts have accrued agency in the world of government. Today, constitutional judges function as "positive legislators," with transformative effects on parliamentary governance. © 2007 Oxford University Press.