Democratizing Constitutional Law

This volume critically discusses the
relationship between democracy and constitutionalism. It does so with a view to
respond to objections raised by legal and political philosophers who are
sceptical of judicial review based on the assumption that judicial review is an
undemocratic institution. The book builds on earlier literature on the moral
justification of the authority of constitutional courts, and on the current
attempts to develop a system on ¿weak judicial review¿. Although different in
their approach, the chapters all focus on devising institutions, procedures
and, in a more abstract way, normative conceptions to democratize
constitutional law. These democratizing strategies may vary from a radical
objection to the institution of judicial review, to a more modest proposal to
justify the authority of constitutional courts in their ¿deliberative
performance¿ or to create constitutional juries that may be more aware of a
community¿s constitutional morality than constitutional courts are. The book connects abstract theoretical
discussions about the moral justification of constitutionalism with concrete
problems, such as the relation between constitutional adjudication and
deliberative democracy, the legitimacy of judicial review in international
institutions, the need to create new institutions to democratize
constitutionalism, the connections between philosophical conceptions and
constitutional practices, the judicial review of constitutional amendments, and
the criticism on strong judicial review.