Judicial Review of Legislation

Abstract

Constitutionalism is the permanent quest to control state power, of which the judicial review of legislation is a prime example. Although the judicial review of legislation is increasingly common in modern societies, it is not a finished project. This device still raises questions as to whether judicial review is justified, and how it may be structured. Yet, judicial review’s justification and its scope are seldom addressed in the same study, thereby making for an inconvenient divorce of these two related avenues of study. To narrow the divide, the object of this work is quite straightforward. Namely, is the idea of judicial review defensible, and what influences its design and scope? This work addresses these matters by comparing the judicial review of legislation in the United Kingdom (the Human Rights Act of 1998), the Netherlands (the Halsema Proposal of 2002) and the Constitution of South Africa of 1996.