Víctor Ferreres Comella
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300148671
- eISBN:
- 9780300148688
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300148671.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
This chapter attempts to underscore the potential advantages to creating a special constitutional tribunal that is relatively detached from the ordinary judiciary. This is especially so in civil-law ...
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This chapter attempts to underscore the potential advantages to creating a special constitutional tribunal that is relatively detached from the ordinary judiciary. This is especially so in civil-law countries. Constitutional judges need to have a degree of “leisure” and “insulation” to reflect upon fundamental values, as Alexander Bickel put it. The centralized model offers an obvious advantage in this regard: the constitutional court can concentrate all its time and energy on checking the validity of parliamentary enactments and is, therefore, liberated from the task of ordinary adjudication. Many European countries bestow ordinary judges the authority to trigger the process of review; when they have doubts about the validity of a statute that is relevant to a case they are handling, they can certify a question to the constitutional court.Less
This chapter attempts to underscore the potential advantages to creating a special constitutional tribunal that is relatively detached from the ordinary judiciary. This is especially so in civil-law countries. Constitutional judges need to have a degree of “leisure” and “insulation” to reflect upon fundamental values, as Alexander Bickel put it. The centralized model offers an obvious advantage in this regard: the constitutional court can concentrate all its time and energy on checking the validity of parliamentary enactments and is, therefore, liberated from the task of ordinary adjudication. Many European countries bestow ordinary judges the authority to trigger the process of review; when they have doubts about the validity of a statute that is relevant to a case they are handling, they can certify a question to the constitutional court.
