Judicial Review in Central and Eastern Europe: Rationales or Rationalizations?

Abstract

Constitutional judicial review in Central and Eastern Europe has become an entrenched and powerful factor in the politics and constitutional life of these countries; indeed, it would be impossible to give even a rough account of these new democracies without bringing constitutional courts into the picture. For all their importance and activism, their introduction had not been preceded by any thorough debate concerning the merits and demerits of the model transplanted from Western Europe—especially, from Germany—and the developing jurisprudence of the courts was strangely silent about the grounds and the limits of the courts ‘legitimacy, especially when replacing parliamentary choices on rights implicating matters with the courts’ own views about the proper articulation of vague rights-provisions. This Article explores some of the reasons and consequences of this silence.