Abstract
Constitutional courts are powerful actors in almost all Western democracies. Their concrete exercise of power can lead to two different forms of democratic crisis: If courts overstep the constitutional powers assigned to them, they infringe the democratic separation of powers and thus contribute to a crisis of the democratic system. However, this form of crisis is to be distinguished from a second form where courts fail to adequately fulfill their democratic function of protecting core areas of democracy against harm. Both forms of crisis—underperforming and overstepping the lines—can seriously disrupt the functioning of modern democracy and trigger or aggravate a trend toward crisis.
Empirically, however, the chapter shows that constitutional courts are far from inducing crises of either sort. The analysis of the cases of Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United States shows that, although the high courts of the respective countries can be described as active players in the political game, no general trend toward judicialization over time is triggered by their actions. An in-depth analysis of the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court with respect to civil liberties furthermore shows that constitutional courts can also effectively prevent the second crisis scenario from materializing. The German Federal Constitutional Court has successfully intervened when freedom has been threatened with restriction by legislative, judicial, or executive action.
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- 1.
The incorporation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms into English law gives all courts in the United Kingdom the right to measure acts of the executive by the yardstick of the basic and human rights under the ECHR and, where necessary, to sanction any violation. However, this does not involve annulling acts of the parliament. What is more, the United Kingdom, like the Netherlands and Switzerland, is integrated into a multi-level, European constitutional (court) system and has submitted itself to the authority of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and/or the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The idea that democratic governance in these countries is not safeguarded by rule-of-law institutions has long since been belied by legal reality.
- 2.
Such appraisal is based firstly on analysis of the formal power and institutionalized influence of constitutional courts on democratic politics (see also Lijphart 1999) and secondly on specific consideration of the sometimes far-reaching judicial review powers and activities of constitutional courts in modern democracy.
- 3.
- 4.
“We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is,” as the 11th chief justice of the US Supreme Court, Charles Evan Hughes (1930–1941) put it tersely and aptly.
- 5.
Conflicts of competence between two or more actors should obviously be decided by a third, independent, and neutral party, since the majority position would otherwise always prevail (“arbitration function” of constitutional jurisdiction). But for reasons of legal logic, decisions on the application and reach of basic rights cannot be left to contingent political majorities as well. If basic rights were in principle at the free disposition of a political majority, their status of basic rights would be forfeit. This is not to argue that political majorities cannot respect or guarantee basic rights. But the purpose of legally entrenched basic rights is to bind the lawmaker; the legislature should not be able to repeal or amend the law pertaining to basic rights by a simple majority (on the collision between basic rights and the democracy principle, see also Alexy 2010, 416–417).
- 6.
Precise determination can be provided only empirically and with the aid of fundamental democratic principles and concrete constitutional norms. An attempt at operationalization is to be found in Kneip (2009).
- 7.
This also shows why the call for judicial restraint contributes nothing to analytical clarity and in effect misses the point: judicial restraint is not a question of the right judicial role model but a legal or democratic functional requirement (see also Grimm 1976).
- 8.
In principle, constitutional courts are always in danger of inducing or preventing crises in both regards. First, it is characteristic of the modern constitutional state that nearly all aspects of society are subject to legal regulation and thus also to judicial review by constitutional courts. The fact that courts can in principle concern themselves with every conceivable facet of societal and political life increases the risk of them overstepping their functional bounds. The danger is particularly great when such cases have to be decided on the basis of open constitutional provisions. On the other hand, constitutional courts are not in a position to review executive or legislative acts on their own initiative. Contraventions of fundamental rights and principles can be sanctioned only if authorized parties actually bring such matters before the court. Constitutional courts will therefore, for structural reasons alone, be able to examine only a fraction of complaints about violations of the law and if necessary sanction such violations.
- 9.
If not explicitly stated, the term “constitutional courts” always refers to both types.
- 10.
Moreover, specialized constitutional courts do not always grant the legislature (or legislative minorities) the right of action. Particularly in cases where the constitutionality of laws is reviewed only incidentally (and not in the context of a concrete legal dispute), the legislature often has no look in. This is the case in Italy.
- 11.
In Europe, for instance, only the courts in Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and the Czech Republic hear constitutional complaints lodged by citizens. Although Austria and Poland have generally institutionalized constitutional complaints, they have not introduced constitutional complaints against court decisions. Although the popular or collective action is allowed in Hungary, it cannot be brought directly against infringements of basic rights but only against the underlying law, which the constitutional court may meanwhile no longer be able to review.
- 12.
In recent years, however, the American Supreme Court has suffered a considerable loss of reputation. See the Gallup data under http://www.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx. Accessed: 30 November 2012. They show that approval for the work of the Supreme Court fell from 62% in 2000 to 46% in the late summer of 2012.
- 13.
The cooperative and sequential appointment procedures in the United States, for example, under which the Senate has to confirm by a simple majority a candidate proposed by the President, mean that, where the Senate and the administration are in the hands of the same party, candidates are likely to share the political and ideological views of the institutions appointing them. This is less likely where there is a party difference between the two. The representative selection procedure in Germany, which requires a supermajority (two-thirds in the Bundestag and Bundesrat), by contrast, ensures that, regardless of current political majorities, candidates are more neutral. This is at least so in principle; in fact, however, both catch-all parties CDU-CSU and SPD make use of their right of veto only in exceptional cases. Judges with stronger ideological leanings are, by contrast, to be expected where representative procedures do not require qualified majorities, where, in other words, different political institutions can appoint judges autonomously (state president, government) or by simple majority (parliament).
- 14.
Subtracted from these figures are parallel proceedings in the same matter. The increase in the number of proceedings after 2009 is due, among other things, to the fact that since 2008 the Austrian court has been the final court of appeal for asylum cases. The marked increase in 1995/1996 is due largely to asylum cases.
- 15.
Judicial review is the strongest, but certainly not the only way in which constitutional courts can intervene in politics. Reviewing acts of the executive or settling conflicts of competence between democratic institutions can have just as great an impact on politics. As far as the impact that constitutional courts have on society is concerned, it can be assumed that, for instance, judicial review of administrative acts (including court decisions) has much greater influence on the lives of citizens in democracies than the review of acts of parliament.
- 16.
From 1951 to 1990, it was positive.
- 17.
But the figures provide no information about whether the most important societal issues are nevertheless decided by constitutional courts. Only qualitative analysis of the courts’ concrete decision output can tell us this. This is beyond the scope of this chapter, but for Germany, see Kneip (2009).
- 18.
The data covers only orders and judgments published in the official law reports of the Federal Constitutional Court. Judgments that cover a number of subjects were counted more than once.
- 19.
In terms of their effect, the 108 decisions under study were categorized as enlarging freedom (liberal) or restricting freedom (conservative). A decision was considered to enlarge freedom if it removed restrictions imposed on liberty by legislation, by other courts, or the executive, or which confirmed enlarged freedoms introduced by these institutions. A decision was classified as restricting freedom if it removed an enlargement of freedom introduced by legislation, other courts, or the executive or confirmed such restrictions. This classification is based on the established classification of the Supreme Court Database (http://scdb.wustl.edu/, accessed 05.09.2017).
- 20.
Three decisions could not be clearly categorized and were therefore not included in the analysis.
- 21.
Decisions enlarging freedom are to be found in all categories.
- 22.
Among other things, the Federal Constitutional Court found fault with the Act on the Suppression of Crime, the unreserved storage of genetic fingerprints, police searches in the event of imminent danger, the seizure of lawyers’ computer files, acoustic surveillance of the home, the European arrest warrant, police telecommunications surveillance, the Aviation Security Act, preventive dragnet surveillance, automatic primary account data access, online searches, automatic recording of vehicle registration numbers, data retention, and the automatic evaluation of IP addresses.
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Kneip, S. (2018). Constitutional Courts in Democracy: Inducing or Preventing Crisis?. In: Merkel, W., Kneip, S. (eds) Democracy and Crisis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72559-8_14
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