Constitutional Dialogues: Protecting Human Rights in France, Germany, Italy and Spain

Abstract

As European systems of constitutional justice have matured, the interdependence of lawmaking and constitutional interpretation has tightened, blurring boundaries allegedly separating judging and legislating, often to the point of irrelevance. This interdependence became increasingly obvious once scholars began focusing attention on the impact of constitutional jurisprudence on public policy (Shapiro and Stone 1994). This line of research documents the capacity of constitutional courts to shape, pre-empt and even dominate legislative processes. In its most extreme formulation (my own), European constitutional courts are explicitly conceptualized as adjunct – or “specialized” - legislative chambers, engaged in continuous, highly-structured dialogues with governments and parliamentarians in the making of public policy (Stone 1992, 1994).