To what extent is the language of judicial opinions responsive to the political and social context in which constitutional courts operate? Courts are reason-giving institutions, with argumentation playing a central role in constitutional adjudication. However, a cursory look at just a handful of constitutional systems suggests important differences in the practices of constitutional judges, whether in matters of form, style, or language. Focusing on independently-verified leading cases globally, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of constitutional reasoning to date. This analysis is supported by the examination of eighteen legal systems around the world including the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. Universally common aspects of constitutional reasoning are identified in this book, and contributors also examine whether common law countries differ to civil law countries in this respect.

This landmark volume of specially commissioned, original contributions by top international scholars organizes the issues and controversies of the rich and rapidly maturing field of comparative constitutional law. Divided into sections on constitutional design and redesign, identity, structure, individual rights and state duties, courts and constitutional interpretation, this comprehensive volume covers over 100 countries as well as a range of approaches to the boundaries of constitutional law. While some chapters reference the text of legal instruments expressly labeled constitutional, others focus on the idea of entrenchment or take a more functional approach. Challenging the current boundaries of the field, the contributors offer diverse perspectives - cultural, historical and institutional - as well as suggestions for future research. A unique and enlightening volume, Comparative Constitutional Law is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject.

This first-of-its-kind volume surveys twenty constitutional judges who 'towered' over their peers, exploring their complexities and flaws.

Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein has said that South Africa has "the most admirable constitution in the history of the world." This comparative constitutional law casebook is unique because it allows students and experts in U.S. constitutional law (or other nations) to compare their approach with modern South African constitutionalism. The transformative and progressive South African Constitution adopts the most successful parts of existing parliamentary constitutions, while honoring the nation's African heritage. Further, it incorporates numerous international human rights such as socio-economic and environmental rights. The book's South African focus guarantees readers will grasp the contingency and social context of a foreign constitutional court's decisions, rather than primarily surveying cases from numerous other nations. Yet the introductory chapter also provides background on South Africa, and then exposes readers to key theoretical questions about comparativism. Moreover, that chapter briefly describes seven other constitutional democracies where the courts play important but different roles than in South Africa. These nations provide further context for the strong judicial review exercised by the South African Constitutional Court. Indeed, excerpts from that Court's decisions make up most of the core second chapter. The core chapter also contains questions about the reasoning of each South African case, as well as how that case compares to a single foreign case on the same topic. The book is suitable for law students, as well as other graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, the book is the first condensed version of South African constitutional case law published in the U.S. Thus, it functions as a research collection for experts, as well as a casebook.

Provides a systematic analysis of both the historical development and current interpretation of constitutional law discourse in Europe.

This volume makes a timely intervention into a field which is marked by a shift from unipolar to multipolar order and a pluralization of constitutional law. It addresses the theoretical and epistemic foundations of Southern constitutionalism and discusses its distinctive themes, such as transformative constitutionalism, inequality, access to justice, and authoritarian legality. This title has three goals. First, to pluralize the conversation around constitutional law. While most scholarship focuses on liberal forms of Western constitutions, this book attempts to take comparative law's promise to cover all major legal systems of the world seriously; second, to reflect critically on the epistemic framework and the distribution of epistemic powers in the scholarly community of comparative constitutional law; third, to reflect on - and where necessary, test - the notion of the Global South in comparative constitutional law. This book breaks down the theories, themes, and global picture of comparative constitutionalism in the Global South. What emerges is a rich tapestry of constitutional experiences that pluralizes comparative constitutional law as both a discipline and a field of knowledge.

This collection adopts a distinctive method and structure to introduce the work of Italian constitutional law scholars into the Anglophone dialogue while also bringing a number of prominent non-Italian constitutional law scholars to study and write about constitutional justice in a global context. The work presents six distinct areas of particular interest from a comparative constitutional perspective: first, the role of legal scholarship in the work of constitutional courts; second, structures and processes that contribute to more “open” or “closed” styles of constitutional adjudication; third, pros and cons of collegiality in the work of constitutional courts; fourth, forms of access by individuals to constitutional justice; fifth, methods of constitutional interpretation; and sixth, the relationship between national constitutional adjudication and the transnational context. In each of these six areas, the volume sets up a new and genuine constitutional dialogue between an Italian scholar presenting a discussion and critical assessment of the specific topic, and a non-Italian scholar who responds elaborating the issue as seen from constitutional law beyond the Italian system. The resulting six such dialogues thus provide a dynamic, in-depth, multidimensional, national and transnational/comparative examination of these areas in which the `Italian style’ of constitutional adjudication has a distinctive contribution to make to comparative constitutional law in general. Fostering a deeper knowledge of the Italian Constitutional Court within the comparative global space and advancing a creative and fruitful methodological approach, the book will be fascinating reading for academics and researchers in comparative constitutional law.