The Making of Constitutional Democracy

Abstract

This book addresses a palpable, yet widely neglected, tension in legal discourse. In our everyday legal practices -whether taking place in a courtroom, classroom, law firm or elsewhere -we routinely and unproblematically talk of the activities of creating and applying law. However, when legal scholars have analysed this distinction in their theories (rather than simply assuming it), many have undermined it, if not dismissed it as untenable.The author shows that the relevance of distinguishing between law-creation and law-application transcends the boundaries of jurisprudential enquiry and is a crucial component of political theory. For if there is no possibility of applying a legal rule that was created by a different institution at a previous moment in time, then our current constitutional-democratic frameworks are effectively empty vessels which conceal a power relationship between public authorities and citizens which is very different from the one on which constitutional democracy is grounded.After problematising the most relevant objections in the literature, the book presents a comprehensive defence of the distinction between creation and application of law within the structure of constitutional democracy. It does so through an integrated jurisprudential methodology, which combines insights from different disciplines (including history, anthropology, political science, philosophy of language and philosophy of action) while also casting new light on long-standing issues in public law, such as the role of legal discretion in the law-making process and the scope of the separation of powers doctrine. Volume 13 in the series Law and Practical Reason Law and Practical ReasonThe intention of this series is that it should encompass monographs and collections of essays that address the fundamental issues in legal philosophy. The foci are conceptual and normative in character, not empirical. Studies addressing the idea of law as a species of practical reason are especially welcome. Recognising that there is no occasion sharply to distinguish analytic and systematic work in the field from historico-critical research, the editors also welcome studies in the history of legal philosophy. Contributions to the series, inevitably crossing disciplinary lines, will be of interest to students and professionals in moral, political, and legal philosophy.

La construction du savoir juridique à l'épreuve de l'objectivité : scholactivism et a priori

“…Ceci dit, les a priori ne jouent aucun rôle tant que le juriste-chercheur a conscience que son épistémè est à la fois savante, technique et limitée. Pourtant, à l'aube d'une crise -autoritaire, illibérale ou autre -, le son du silence académique face à la régression constitutionnelle peut être assourdissant 101 , et ce d'autant plus que les enseignants-chercheurs sont dépositaires d'un savoir 102 .…”

Montesquieu na América Latina

“…Isso representa uma crítica significativa às teorias políticas constitucionais que questionam a legitimidade do controle de constitucionalidade em termos teóricos, e não pragmáticos. Afinal, para o autor, é incoerente defender a ideia de democracia como autogoverno, como fazem os teóricos políticos constitucionais, e, simultaneamente, negar a distinção entre a criação e a aplicação da lei no que se refere à revisão judicial da legislação 21 .…”

“…Para o presente trabalho, destaca-se que a crítica analítica de Paolo Sandro à separação de poderes é intrínseca à sua ideia de democracia constitucional baseada na distinção entre as atividades de criar e de aplicar do Direito, realizando uma reavaliação metateórica do conceito 31 . Entretanto, adianta-se que se trata de análise insuficiente sobre o fenômeno da separação de poderes, sobretudo quando se trata de América Latina.…”