Macedonian Constitutional court and ratified international agreements - can the concluded international agreement be a subject of constitutional review?

Abstract

In every domestic law that is part of the continental legal tradition, the Constitutional court has the central role of keeping the normative balances between the national and international legal order. The formulation “internal, national legal order” involves all pronounced acts, which means the Constitution, statutes, by-laws, and ratified international agreements. Every provision of the national law must be in normative harmony with the Constitution – as a domestic regulation with the highest legal power. Hence, with the act of ratification, the international agreements can be subject to the constitutionality review - besides the statutes and the by-laws. The constitutional makers can decide the constitutionality review of the international agreements to be prescribed by constitutional norms. If the constitutional makers omitted to regulate specialized authorization, the Constitutional court, through its own practice, can create a model for reviewing the constitutionality of the international agreements. Having in mind that the Macedonian constitutional system has not provide the constitutionality control of the international agreements, the Macedonian Constitutional court has a fully independent role in defining the method for implementing the principle constitutionality over the international agreements – a specialized model for “interpretation” (complement) of the constitutional law. More precisely, the Macedonian Constitutional court has already accepted this approach for constitutional law interpretation.