Concrete Review as Indirect Constitutional Complaint in French Constitutional Law: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

1958: a priori review of parliamentary legislation to keep Parliament within its limited legislative competences – 2008: a posteriori review to protect citizens' rights and freedoms – Varieties of concrete review – Originality of the new French procedure – An indirect constitutional complaint: raised by a litigating party, transmitted by an ordinary court and decided by the Constitutional Council – Obstacle to transmission: declaration of conformity in the motives of an earlier decision by Constitutional Council – Conceptual, logical and legal reasons for a strict distinction between normative content and justificatory discourse in judgments – Setting on par of motives and operative part transforms French legal system into a specific form of common law and weakens the Rule of Law