Judicial Review. Comparative Constitutional Law Essays, Lectures And Courses (1985-2011) [Paperback]

This book deals with Judicial Review, as the power of judges to control the constitutionality of State acts, particularly of Legislation, which not only is the most important subject of contemporary constitutional law, but also the most distinctive feature of all democratic constitutional systems. Such power is the consequence of the consolidation in contemporary constitutionalism of three fundamental principles of law: first, the existence of a written constitution or of a fundamental law, conceived as a superior law with clear supremacy over all other statutes; second, the rigid character of such constitution, which implies that the amendments or reforms that may be introduced can only be put into practice by means of a particular and special constituent process, preventing the ordinary legislator from doing so; and third, the establishment in that same written and rigid constitution or fundamental law, of the judicial means for guaranteeing its supremacy, over all other state acts, including legislative acts. According to such principles, consequently, in democratic systems subjected to the rule of law, the judges can have the power to refuse to enforce a statute when they deem it to be contrary to the Constitution, considering it null or void with inter partes effects, through what is known as the American model or the diffuse system of judicial review; or one particular Constitutional Court or the Supreme Court of the country can be empowered to annul laws considered unconstitutional, with erga omnes effects, through what is known as the European model or concentrated system of judicial review; with the possibility for both system to coexist, through what is known as the Latin American model or the mixed system of judicial review. These systems are analyzed in this book from a comparative constitutional law perspective, a matter that professor Brewer-Carias has been studying for the past decades, and on which he has extensively published in books anl#"