There is no one definition of case law, but rather a plurality of meanings. In this respect, after an analysis of Roman iurisprudentia and Anglo-Saxon case law, this work considers the Spanish legal system, as an example of a Continental jurisdiction.

This book provides a critical introduction to the principles and institutions that make up the Spanish Constitution, which was enacted in 1978. It first explains the process of transition from Franco's dictatorship to democracy, in order to understand the historical circumstances under which the Constitution was framed. After offering a theory to justify the authority of the Constitution over ordinary laws, the book proceeds to explain the basic principles of the Spanish political regime, as well as the structure of its complex legal system. Later chapters focus on various institutions, such as the Crown, Parliament and the Government. A specific chapter is devoted to the territorial distribution of power between the State, the regions and local government. The last two chapters deal with the constitutional role of courts, and the protection of fundamental rights. The book includes some reflections on the challenges that lie ahead and the constitutional reforms that may need to be considered in the future.

Judicial Cosmopolitanism: The Use of Foreign Law in Contemporary Constitutional Systems offers a detailed account of the use of foreign law by supreme and constitutional Courts of Europe, America and East Asia.

Judicial control of public power ensures a guarantee of the rule of law. This book addresses the scope and limits of judicial control at the national level, i.e. the control of public authorities, and at the supranational level, i.e. the control of States. It explores the risk of judicial review leading to judicial activism that can threaten the principle of the separation of powers or the legitimate exercise of state powers. It analyzes how national and supranational legal systems have embodied certain mechanisms, such as the principles of reasonableness, proportionality, deference and margin of appreciation, as well as the horizontal effects of human rights that help to determine how far a judge can go. Taking a theoretical and comparative view, the book first examines the conceptual bases of the various control systems and then studies the models, structural elements, and functions of the control instruments in selected countries and regions. It uses country and regional reports as the basis for the comparison of the convergences and divergences of the implementation of control in certain countries of Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The book’s theoretical reflections and comparative investigations provide answers to important questions, such as whether or not there are nascent universal principles concerning the control of public power, how strong the impact of particular legal traditions is, and to what extent international law concepts have had harmonizing and strengthening effects on internal public-power control.

This book contains a series of essays discussing the uses of precedent as a source of law and a basis for legal arguments in nine different legal systems, representing a variety of legal traditions. Precedent is fundamental to law, yet theoretical and ideological as well as legal considerations lead to its being differently handled and rationalised in different places. Out of the comparative study come the six theoretical and synoptic essays that conclude the volume.

"All over the world, in all democratic States, independently of having a legal system based on the common law or on the civil law principles, the courts – special constitutional courts, supreme courts or ordinary courts – have the power to decide and declare the unconstitutionality of legislation or of other State acts when a particular statute violates the text of the Constitution or of its constitutional principles. This power of the courts is the consequence of the consolidation in contem-porary constitutionalism of three fundamental principles of law: first, the existence of a written or unwritten constitution or of a fundamental law, conceived as a superior law with clear supremacy over all other statutes; second, the “rigid” character of such constitution or fundamental law, which implies that the amendments or reforms that may be introduced can only be put into practice by means of a particular and special constituent or legislative process, preventing the ordinary legislator from doing so; and third, the establishment in that same written or unwritten and rigid constitution or fundamental law, of the judicial means for guaranteeing its supremacy, over all other state acts, including legislative acts. Accordingly, in democratic systems subjected to such principles, the courts have the power to refuse to enforce a statute when deemed to be contrary to the Constitu-tion, considering it null or void, through what is known as the diffuse system of judicial review; and in many cases, they even have the power to annul the said unconstitutional law, through what is known as the concentrated system of judicial review. The former, is the system created more than two hundred years ago by the Supreme Court of the United States, and that so deeply characterizes the North American Constitutional system. The latter system, has been adopted in consti-tutional systems in which the judicial power of judicial review has been generally assigned to the Supreme Court or to one special Constitutional Court, as is the case, for example, of many countries in Europe and in Latin America. This concentrated system of judicial review, although established in many Latin American countries since the 19th century, was only effectively developed particularly in the world after World War II following the studies of Hans Kelsen. Of course, during the past thirty years many changes have occurred in the world on these matters of Judicial Review, in particularly in Europe and specifically in the United Kingdom, where these Lectures were delivered. Nonetheless, I have decided to publish them hereto in its integrality, as they were: the written work of a law professor made as a consequence of his research for the preparation of his lectures, not pretending to be anything else, but the academic testimony of the state of the subject of judicial review in the world in 1985-1986". Allan R. Brewer–Carías.