Abstract
In the past fifteen years the Conseil Constitutionnel, or Constitutional Council, has risen from a politically obscure and insignificant institution to a central player in the governing process of France. Its primary function is to review legislation made by Parliament, the national legislature, for conformity to the French Constitution. Initially, the Council’s jurisdiction was limited to separation of powers issues. Recently it has assumed the added function of protecting individual rights and liberties, a jurisdiction that is not explicitly conferred on the Council by the Constitution. In exercising a form of judicial review over the acts of its legislative counterpart, the Council has come to occupy a position similar in function — but quite different in detail — to that of the American Supreme Court. Unlike its American counterpart, the Council has achieved its new role in the context of a two-hundred-year-old «political tradition of popular sovereignty that has been hostile toward any judicial control of the political branches of government. This paper analyzes the remarkable political development of the Constitutional Council in recent French politics and compares it to relevant American and Canadian experiences.1
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Notes
Different versions of this analysis may be found in F. L. Morton, ‘Judicial Review in France: A Comparative Analysis,’ American Journal of Comparative Law, 36 (Winter, 1988) 1: 89–110; and ‘Point de vue d’outre-Atlantlique sur le Conseil Constitutionnel,’ Pouvoirs: Revue Française D’Etudes Constitutionennelles et Politiques 46 (1988): 127- 45.
For a criticism of this work, see John T. S. Keeler, ‘En reponse aux analyses de F. L. Morton: Perspectives nord-Américaines sur le Conseil constitutionnel.’ Pouvoirs Al (1988): 145–9.
Talion, ‘The Constitution and the Courts in France,’ American Journal of Comparative Law (1979): 567–575, at 567.
John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America (Stanford University Press, 1985), pp. 28–29.
Dallis Radamaker, ‘The Courts in France,’ in Jerold L. Waltman and Kenneth M. Holland, The Political Role of Law Courts in Modern Democracies (Macmillan Press, 1987), pp. 129–151, at 143–145.
Daniel Soulex Lariviere, ‘Faut-il faire un procès des juges?’ L’Express, 3–9 avril, 1987, pp. 98–105. This is an abridgement of Lariviere’s book-length study of dissatisfaction with and within the French judiciary, Les juges dans la balance (1987).
The most recent and comprehensive overview of the Conseil Constitutionnel and its work is by Louis Favoreu, ‘La Justice constitutionnelle en France,’ Les Cahiers de Droit (Laval University, Quebec) 26 (juin, 1985) 2: 299–337.
The best monograph (120 pp.) on the subject is by Louis Favoreu and Loic Phillip. Le Conseil Constitutionnel. 3e edn PUF (Que sais-je?) (Paris, 1985).
The principal book length study (435 pp.) is Francois Luchaire, Le Conseil Constitutionnel (Paris: Economica, 1980).
Other important works include Pouvoirs: Revue Française d’Etudes Constitutionnelles et Politiques. 2e edn 1986, no. 13: ‘Le Conseil constitutionnel.’ Presses Universitaires de France; and Jean Rivero, Le Conseil constitutionnel et les libertés (Economica: Paris, 1984; 178 pp.). For English language articles dealing with the Conseil Constitutionnel, see fh. 10 below.
Richard J. Cummins ‘Constitutional Protection of Civil Liberties in France,’ American Journal of Comparative Law, 33 (1985) 4: 721–732;
Michael H. Davis, ‘The Law-Politics Distinction, the French Conseil Constitutionnel, and the U.S. Supreme Court,’ The American Journal of Comparative Law, 1 (Winter, 1986): 45–92;
John T. S. Keeler, ‘Toward a Government of Judges? The Constitutional Council as an Obstacle to Reform in Mitterand’s France,’ French Politics and Society, Issue 11 (October 1985): 12–24;
Neubome, Burt. ‘Judicial Review and Separation of Powers in France and the United States.’ New York University Law Review 57 (June 1982) 3: 363–442;
Nicholas, ‘Fundamental Rights and Judicial Review in France,’ (pts. 1 & 2) Public Law 82 (1978): 155.
L. Favoreu, ‘Les Cent Premieres Annulations Prononcées par le Conseil Constitutionnel,’ Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique (1987): 442–454, at 451.
For a very good and very recent account, see Alec Stone, ‘Legal Constraints to Policy-Making,’ in Paul Godt (ed.), Policy-Making in France: From de Gaulle to Mitterand (New York and London: Pinter Publishers, 1989), pp. 28–41.
Also Alex Stone, ‘In the Shadow of the Constitutional Council: The 4 Juridicisation’ of the Legislative Process in France,’ in West European Politics 12 (April 1989) 2: 12–34.
An earlier North American commentator, John Keeler, drew the same comparison, but reached different conclusions. ‘Confrontations juridico-politiques: Les Conseil constitutionnel face au gouvernement socialiste comparé a la Cour Suprème face au New Deal’ Pouvoirs, no. 35 (1985): 133–148. This interpretation is elaborated in a subsequent article by John T. S. Keeler and Alex Stone, ‘The Emergence of the Constitutional Council as a Major-Actor in the Policy-Making Process.’ in George Ross, Stanley Hoffman, and Sylvia Malzacher (eds), The Mitterand Experiment: Continuity and Change in Modern France (London: Polity Press, 1987), pp. 161–184.
One of the primary functions of the Council of State is to provide the Government with legal advice on its proposed bills and regulations. This legal advice includes advice as to constitutionality, but is offered as ‘in house’ advice, not as a ‘judgement.’ The Government is not legally obliged to follow this advice, but failure to do so may incur political costs. For the best discussion of this aspect of the Council of State’s work, see Alec Stone, ‘Legal Constraints to Policy-Making/ in Paul Godt (ed.), Policy-Making in France: From de Gaulle to Mitterand (New York and London: Pinter Publishers, 1989), pp. 28–41.
Dorothy Pickles, The Government and Politics of France: Institutions and Parties, v.l (Methuen, 1972), p. 295.
Joseph Barthélémy, Le Gouvernement de la France (Paris: Payot 1930), p. 206.
William Safran, The French Polity (New York: David McKay Co., 1977)
See Louis Favoreu, ‘La Cour de cassation, le Conseil constitutionnel and l’article 66 de la Constitution: A Propos des arrêts de la Chambre Criminelle du 25 avril, 1985.’ Recueil Dalloz Sirey 23e cahier chronique (1986): 169–178.
D. S. Bell and Byron Criddle, ‘The Communist Party: Out of the Frying Pan,’ in Patrick McCarthy (ed.), The French Socialists in Power, 1981–1986 (New York: Greenwood, 1987), pp. 155–69.
Daniel Singer, Is Socialism Doomed: The Meaning of Mitterand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 5.
Black, The People and the Court: Judicial Review in a Democracy (1960), p. 64, and Ch. 3 generally.
Black, fh. 50, above. Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (1962).
See K. O’Conner and L. Epstein, ‘The Role of Interest Groups in Supreme Court Policy-Formation,’ in R. Eyestone (ed.), Public Policy Formation (JAI Press, 1984), pp. 101–145.
See F. L. Morton, ‘The Political Impact of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,’ Canadian Journal of Political Science 20 (March 1987): 31–55, at 47–51.
F. L. Morton, et al, ‘Judicial Nullification of Statutes under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982–1988.’ Constitutional Studies 1989. Special Issue of the Alberta Law Review, 28 (1990) 2: 396–426.
See F. L. Morton and Peter Russell, ‘The Supreme Court’s First One Hundred Charter of Rights Decisions: A Statistical Analysis.’ Paper delivered at the 1990 annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Victoria, British Columbia; May 27–29 1990. More generally see Michael Mandel, The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of Politics in Canada (Toronto: Wall and Thompson, 1989).
See John D. Whyte, ‘On Not Standing for Notwithstanding,’ Constitutional Studies 1989. Special issue of the Alberta Law Review, 28 (1990) 2: 347–357.
See generally, Seymour Martin Lipset, Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (C. D. Howe Institute (Canada) and National Planning Association (U.S.), 1989); ‘Revolution and Counter-Revolution,’ pp. 1–19.
See K. D. McRae, Consociational Democracy: Political Accommodation in Segmented Societies (McClellan and Stewart, 1974). McRae defines consociational democracy as a society ‘with subcultural cleavages tending towards immobilism and instability but which is deliberately turned into a stable society by the leaders of the major subcultures.’
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Morton, F.L. (1991). Judicial Activism in France. In: Holland, K.M. (eds) Judicial Activism in Comparative Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11774-1_8
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