Constitutional and legal status of the Constitutional Council of France

Abstract

he Constitutional Council of France is a body of constitutional control established by the Constitution of 1958. The ConstitutionalCouncil is not the only body that carries out the control over constitutionality. The peculiarity of constitutional control in France consistsin the fact that it has a dual nature and goes beyond well-known models of constitutional control. The constitutionality of acts, issuedby the Parliament, is considered by the Constitutional Council, and after the executive bodies do that, it is passed on to the State Council.Despite the fact that the Constitutional Council is not nominated by a court, its decisions, by their essence, are judicial acts and,likewise the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, are endowed with the property of binding force. They are obligatory forall administrative and judicial bodies and are not subjected to revision (the Paragraph 3 of the Article 62 of the French Constitution).However, it should be taken into account that in addition to binding decisions, the Constitutional Council “expresses opinions” that areadvisory in their nature.In addition to carrying out constitutional control, the Constitutional Council has a number of other functions, such as political,advisory and acts as a court to assess the results of elections of deputies to the National Assembly and the Senate, and elections of thePresident of the Republic. Perhaps that is why the Constitutional Council classifies its decisions due to the types of its own powers.Herewith, the noted specific peculiarities are denoted by the Constitutional Council with the help of fixed letter combinations, which are included in the numbers of decision: REF, enacted on referendum issues; ORGA, enacted on issues of the organization of the Cons -titutional Council, etc.Since, despite all the diversity of functions of the Constitutional Council of France, therefore, its main purpose remains the cons -titutional control. Therefore, using the criterion of powers, under which decisions are made, in terms of initial graduation one shouldpoint out the decisions on issues, which are connected with providing compliance of the Constitution with regulatory acts (assuring thepriority of the Constitution), and decisions passed while carrying out other powers.Decisions of the Constitutional Council outstand with being formal and brief. A decision can take literally a few paragraphs. Themost frequently, the Constitutional Council merely refers to a constitutional norm or is limited to the phrase “these provisions do notcontradict the Constitution”, giving guidance and justifying its position in the least.