Democratizing Constitutional Law : Perspectives on Legal Theory and the Legitimacy of Constitutionalism

This volume critically discusses therelationship between democracy and constitutionalism. It does so with a view torespond to objections raised by legal and political philosophers who aresceptical of judicial review based on the assumption that judicial review is anundemocratic institution. The book builds on earlier literature on the moraljustification of the authority of constitutional courts, and on the currentattempts to develop a system on "weak judicial review". Although different intheir approach, the chapters all focus on devising institutions, proceduresand, in a more abstract way, normative conceptions to democratizeconstitutional law. These democratizing strategies may vary from a radicalobjection to the institution of judicial review, to a more modest proposal tojustify the authority of constitutional courts in their "deliberativeperformance" or to create constitutional juries that may be more aware of acommunity''s constitutional morality than constitutional courts are.  The book connects abstract theoreticaldiscussions about the moral justification of constitutionalism with concreteproblems, such as the relation between constitutional adjudication anddeliberative democracy, the legitimacy of judicial review in internationalinstitutions, the need to create new institutions to democratizeconstitutionalism, the connections between philosophical conceptions andconstitutional practices, the judicial review of constitutional amendments, andthe criticism on strong judicial review.