Constitutional pluralism

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Constitutional pluralism is a legal doctrine dealing with real or perceived conflicts between national constitutions and international law, as enshrined in treaties, international dispute resolution mechanisms, or the European Union. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The doctrine has received criticism due to its perceived abuse by states undergoing autocratization such as Poland and Hungary in the late 2010s. [7] [8]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political question</span> Legal doctrine that political questions are nonjusticiable

In United States constitutional law, the political question doctrine holds that a constitutional dispute that requires knowledge of a non-legal character or the use of techniques not suitable for a court or explicitly assigned by the Constitution to the U.S. Congress, or the President of the United States, lies within the political, rather than the legal, realm to solve, and judges customarily refuse to address such matters. The idea of a political question is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has the authority to hear and decide a legal question, not a political one. Legal questions are deemed to be justiciable, while political questions are nonjusticiable. One scholar explained:

The political question doctrine holds that some questions, in their nature, are fundamentally political, and not legal, and if a question is fundamentally political ... then the court will refuse to hear that case. It will claim that it doesn't have jurisdiction. And it will leave that question to some other aspect of the political process to settle out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reformation</span> 16th-century schism in Western Christianity

The Reformation was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Court of Human Rights</span> Supranational court established by the Council of Europe

The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights enumerated in the Convention or its optional protocols to which a member state is a party. The European Convention on Human Rights is also referred to by the initials "ECHR". The court is based in Strasbourg, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law and Justice</span> Political party in Poland

Law and Justice is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Poland. Its chairman is Jarosław Kaczyński.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venice Commission</span> Advisory body of the Council of Europe

The Venice Commission, officially European Commission for Democracy through Law, is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law. It was created in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at a time of urgent need for constitutional assistance in Central and Eastern Europe.

Involuntary treatment refers to medical treatment undertaken without the consent of the person being treated. Involuntary treatment is permitted by law in some countries when overseen by the judiciary through court orders; other countries defer directly to the medical opinions of doctors.

Africa's fifty-six sovereign states range widely in their history and structure, and their laws are variously defined by customary law, religious law, common law, Western civil law, other legal traditions, and combinations thereof.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Primacy of European Union law</span> Legal principle

The primacy of European Union law is a legal principle establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judicial review</span> Ability of courts to review actions by executive and legislatures

Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority: an executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers: the power of the judiciary to supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries.

Constitutional references to God exist in the constitutions of a number of nations, most often in the preamble. A reference to God in a legal text is called invocatio dei if the text itself is proclaimed in the name of the deity. A reference to God in another context is called nominatio dei. Such invocationes and nominationes dei are found notably in several European constitutional traditions and in the constitutions of Islamic countries.

The judiciary of Poland are the authorities exercising the judicial power of the Polish state on the basis of Chapter 8 of the Constitution of Poland. As in almost all countries of continental Europe, the Polish judiciary operates within the framework of civil law.

After the Second World War in 1945, issues surrounding wartime loss and compensation started to arise. Cultural valuables were taken from Germany and placed in the Soviet Union. Years later, at the break up of the USSR, the said cultural valuables came to attention as the issue of ownership arose. Following, the debates between the Russian Duma and the Yeltsin government began, with the Duma focusing on compensation to Russia for wartime loss, and Yeltsin focusing on maintaining international relationships and agreements. Arising from the debate, were many struggles, but ultimately the enactment of the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation.

Renaud Dehousse is a Belgian lawyer and professor, born on the 2 June 1960 in Liège, Belgium. He is currently President of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratic backsliding</span> Phenomenon where liberal democracies may gradually become authoritarian

Democratic backsliding, also called autocratization, is the decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system, and is the opposite of democratization. Democracy is the most popular form of government, with more than half of the nations in the world being democracies according to a study examining 165 countries determined that 98 of them were democracies in 2020. Since the 2010s, the world has grown more authoritarian, with one quarter of the world's population under democratically backsliding hybrid regimes into the 2020s.

The Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia is the highest court in Ethiopia. It was established by the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia constitution in 1994 and is currently located in Addis Ababa. Article 78 of the Constitution establishes the judiciary and at the top is the FSC. By the Constitution, the Federal Supreme Court has "the power of cassation over any final court decision containing a basic error of law". In 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed Meaza Ashenafi to be the first female president 03the Federal Supreme Court. Solomon Areda Waktolla was appointed as Vice President of the Federal Supreme Court. Both were resigned by the Parliament on 17 January 2023, and replaced by Tewdros Mihret and Abeba Embiale as Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court respectively.

"Necessary in a democratic society" is a test found in Articles 8–11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that the state may impose restrictions of these rights only if such restrictions are "necessary in a democratic society" and proportional to the legitimate aims enumerated in each article. According to the Council of Europe's handbook on the subject, the phrase is "arguably one of the most important clauses in the entire Convention". Indeed, the Court has itself written that "the concept of a democratic society ... prevails throughout the Convention". The purpose of making such claims justiciable is to ensure that the restriction is actually necessary, rather than enacted for political expediency, which is not allowed. Articles 8–11 of the convention are those that protect right to family life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association respectively. Along with the other tests which are applied to these articles, the restrictions on Articles 8–11 have been described as "vast limitations", in contrast to American law which recognizes nearly unlimited right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wojciech Sadurski</span> Polish/Australian constitutional law scholar

Wojciech Sadurski is a Polish and Australian scholar of constitutional law. As of 2020, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dimitry Kochenov</span>

Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov is a professor in the Department of Legal Studies at Central European University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Identity Clause</span>

National Identity Clause - is a legal principle enshrined in article 4 (2) of the Treaty on European Union. Its original purpose can be linked to the protection of cultural identity, apparently threatened by the free movement of services and goods in the cultural domain. It was supposed to prevent EU competence creep in the areas belonging to complementary competencies. Today it is most typically associated with limits to European integration and protection of core competences of the nation states within the EU.

Freedom of religion is recognized as a legal right in Hungary. The Fundamental Law of Hungary establishes the country as being founded on Christian values but guarantees the right to freedom of religion and freedom from religious discrimination. The history of religious freedom in Hungary has varied, with freedom of religion first recognized in 1919 before being restricted by Communist rule in the mid-20th century. Religious rights were restored following the end of Communism in Hungary, but the government under Viktor Orbán has been criticized for its restriction of religious freedoms.

References

  1. Avbelj, Matej; Komárek, Jan, eds. (2012). Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union and Beyond. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-1-84731-891-6.
  2. Bobić, Ana (2017). "Constitutional Pluralism Is Not Dead: An Analysis of Interactions Between Constitutional Courts of Member States and the European Court of Justice". German Law Journal. 18 (6): 1395–1428. doi: 10.1017/S2071832200022380 .
  3. Stone Sweet, Alec (2012). "A cosmopolitan legal order: Constitutional pluralism and rights adjudication in Europe". Global Constitutionalism. 1 (1): 53–90. doi:10.1017/S2045381711000062. S2CID   154605211.
  4. Walker, Neil (2002). "The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism". Modern Law Review. 65 (3): 317–359. doi:10.1111/1468-2230.00383. hdl: 1814/179 .
  5. Jaklic, Klemen (2013). Constitutional Pluralism in the EU. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-100894-8.
  6. Avbelj, Matej; Komárek, Jan (2008). "Four Visions of Constitutional Pluralism". European Constitutional Law Review. 4 (3): 524–527. doi:10.1017/S1574019608005245. hdl: 1814/9372 . S2CID   145588740.
  7. "Constitutional Pluralism between Normative Theory and Empirical Fact". Verfassungsblog. 23 October 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  8. Kelemen, R. Daniel; Pech, Laurent (2019). "The Uses and Abuses of Constitutional Pluralism: Undermining the Rule of Law in the Name of Constitutional Identity in Hungary and Poland" (PDF). Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies. 21: 59–74. doi:10.1017/cel.2019.11. S2CID   211316174.