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Comparative Constitutional Law and EU Law
Program 2015 / 2016
Organised by the
Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Bosnia and Herzegovina
in cooperation with
Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, Germany
Part One: Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo
November 2 – 13, 2015
Week 1, November 2 – 6, 2015
Comparative Constitutional Law
Reading materials
Dr. Christof Maria Fritzen, LL.M.
Monday, November 2, 2015
9:00 – 10:30
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
What is a constitution?
- Constitutionalism, formal and material requirements
- Creation, adoption of constitutions
- Written / unwritten constitutions
- Constitution making in divided societies
Dorsen, Rosenfeld, Sajo, Baer, Comparative Constitutionalism, Cases and Materials,
p. 10-12, What is Constitutionalism?
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers No. 84, May 28, 1788 (Hamilton was
one of the three authors of the Federalist Papers which were published in 1787 and
1788 to convince the people of the State of New York to ratify the then new American
Constitution. In its original format the new American Constitution contained no Bill
of Rights. In The Federalist No. 84 Hamilton argues that the Constitution needed
no Bill of Rights. Do you agree?)
Certification of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Judgment of the
Constitutional Court of South Africa, 1996 (4) SALR 744 (CC)
Vivien Hart, Democratic Constitution Making, U.S. Institute of Peace, Special
Report 107, July 2003
Donald L. Horowitz, Conciliatory Institutions and Constitutional Processes in Post-
Conflict States, William and Mary Law Review, 2008, vol 49, p. 1213-1214, 1240-
1248
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Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution
Considered and Answered
From McLEAN's Edition, New York.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
IN THE course of the foregoing review of the Constitution, I have taken notice of, and endeavoredto answer most of the objections which have appeared against it. There, however, remain a fewwhich either did not fall naturally under any particular head or were forgotten in their proper places.These shall now be discussed; but as the subject has been drawn into great length, I shall so farconsult brevity as to comprise all my observations on these miscellaneous points in a single paper.
The most considerable of the remaining objections is that the plan of the convention contains no billof rights. Among other answers given to this, it has been upon different occasions remarked that theconstitutions of several of the States are in a similar predicament. I add that New York is of thenumber. And yet the opposers of the new system, in this State, who profess an unlimited admirationfor its constitution, are among the most intemperate partisans of a bill of rights. To justify their zealin this matter, they allege two things: one is that, though the constitution of New York has no bill ofrights prefixed to it, yet it contains, in the body of it, various provisions in favor of particularprivileges and rights, which, in substance amount to the same thing; the other is, that theConstitution adopts, in their full extent, the common and statute law of Great Britain, by whichmany other rights, not expressed in it, are equally secured.
To the first I answer, that the Constitution proposed by the convention contains, as well as theconstitution of this State, a number of such provisions.
Independent of those which relate to the structure of the government, we find the following: Article1, section 3, clause 7 "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removalfrom office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under theUnited States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial,judgment, and punishment according to law.'' Section 9, of the same article, clause 2 "The privilegeof the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasionthe public safety may require it.'' Clause 3 "No bill of attainder or ex-post-facto law shall bepassed.'' Clause 7 "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holdingany office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of anypresent, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.''Article 3, section 2, clause 3 "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be byjury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; butwhen not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress mayby law have directed.'' Section 3, of the same article "Treason against the United States shall consistonly in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Noperson shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act,or on confession in open court.'' And clause 3, of the same section "The Congress shall have powerto declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or
to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, orforfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted.''
It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with anywhich are to be found in the constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeascorpus, the prohibition of ex-post-facto laws, and of TITLES OF NOBILITY, TO WHICH WEHAVE NO CORRESPONDING PROVISION IN OUR CONSTITUTION, are perhaps greatersecurities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after thecommission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which,when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, havebeen, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of thejudicious Blackstone,1 in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man oflife, Õsays he,å or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be sogross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout thewhole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferingsare unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUSENGINE of arbitrary government.'' And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarlyemphatical in his encomiums on the habeas-corpus act, which in one place he calls "the BULWARKof the British Constitution.''2
Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This maytruly be denominated the corner-stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded,there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people.
To the second that is, to the pretended establishment of the common and state law by theConstitution, I answer, that they are expressly made subject "to such alterations and provisions asthe legislature shall from time to time make concerning the same.'' They are therefore at anymoment liable to repeal by the ordinary legislative power, and of course have no constitutionalsanction. The only use of the declaration was to recognize the ancient law and to remove doubtswhich might have been occasioned by the Revolution. This consequently can be considered as nopart of a declaration of rights, which under our constitutions must be intended as limitations of thepower of the government itself.
It has been several times truly remarked that bills of rights are, in their origin, stipulations betweenkings and their subjects, abridgements of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights notsurrendered to the prince. Such was MAGNA CHARTA, obtained by the barons, sword in hand,from King John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes.Such was the PETITION OF RIGHT assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign. Such,also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an act of parliament called the Bill of Rights. It isevident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application toconstitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediaterepresentatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retainevery thing they have no need of particular reservations. "WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States,to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH thisConstitution for the United States of America.'' Here is a better recognition of popular rights, thanvolumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights,and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.
But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like thatunder consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of thenation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and privateconcerns. If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the convention, on this score, are wellfounded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the constitution of this State. But the truthis, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.
IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
Certification of the Constitution of The Republic of South Africa, 1996
CCT 23/96
Decided on 1 July 1996
MEDIA SUMMARY
The following explanatory note is provided to assist the media in reporting this case and
is not binding on the Constitutional Court or any member of the Court.
Since 27 April 1994 South Africa has functioned under an interim constitution, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993. The negotiating parties designed the Interim Constitution as a bridge between the old order and the new, to regulate the governance of the country under a government of national unity while a popularly mandated Constitutional Assembly (CA) drafted a new constitution. The Interim Constitution also served to mark out the further transitional steps to be taken.
One of these steps was that the CA had to adopt the new draft constitution within a period of two years and by a majority of at least two-thirds of the CA's members. A second requirement was that the constitutional text had to comply with a set of Constitutional Principles agreed to by the negotiating parties and set out in Schedule 4 to the Interim Constitution. A third requirement of the Interim Constitution was that the constitutional text has no legal force unless the Constitutional Court certifies that all the provisions of the text comply with the Constitutional Principles. The Court must determine whether every requirement of the Principles has been satisfied by the provisions of the text and whether any provision in the text conflicts with the CPs. The Court's powers and functions in regard to certification of the text are confined to this determination.
The CA adopted the new constitutional text, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996, timeously and with the requisite majority. The Chairperson of the CA then transmitted the text to the Court for certification. The CA and all political parties represented in the CA were entitled to present oral argument to the Court. In addition the public at large was invited to submit representations relevant to the question of certification of the text. Many written submissions were received and over a period of nine days the CA, five political parties and certain other bodies and persons who had filed relevant submissions were afforded an opportunity to advance oral argument to the Court.
The Court's judgment is divided into eight chapters, each dealing with a particular main topic under various subheadings. Having sketched the background and context of the certification exercise, the judgment explains the Court's approach to its task and then deals with each identified issue bearing on the question of certification. In the main, these relate to the provisions in the Bill of Rights and their entrenchment; to the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the state, including the independence of the judiciary; to the relationship between the legislative and executive
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contendedfor, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. Theywould contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford acolorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be donewhich there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shallnot be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contendthat such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to mendisposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblanceof reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against theabuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty ofthe press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it wasintended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numeroushandles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of aninjudicious zeal for bills of rights.
On the subject of the liberty of the press, as much as has been said, I cannot forbear adding a remarkor two: in the first place, I observe, that there is not a syllable concerning it in the constitution ofthis State; in the next, I contend, that whatever has been said about it in that of any other State,amounts to nothing. What signifies a declaration, that "the liberty of the press shall be inviolablypreserved''? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leavethe utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security,whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether dependon public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government.3 And here, afterall, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.
There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all thedeclamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to everyuseful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain form itsConstitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights. And the proposedConstitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union. Is it one object of a bill of rights todeclare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of thegovernment? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention;comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of theState constitutions. Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes ofproceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also beenattended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning ofa bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention. It maybe said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can withno propriety be contended that there is no such thing. It certainly must be immaterial what mode isobserved as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are to be found in any part ofthe instrument which establishes the government. And hence it must be apparent, that much of whathas been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign fromthe substance of the thing.
tiers of government at the national, provincial and local levels, with special reference to the individual and collective powers and functions of the provinces; to the position of traditional leadership and customary law; and to the functions and independence of 'watchdog' institutions of state.
In Chapter III of the judgment the Court deals with a wide variety of questions relating to the Bill of Rights, ranging from 'horizontality', the position of juristic persons and the limitations clause, to labour relations, the property clause, socio-economic rights, language and education, access to information and marriage and family rights.
A major focus of the judgment is on provincial government issues, more specifically whether the constitutional text provides for 'legitimate provincial autonomy' and whether 'the powers and functions of the provinces' under the proposed constitution are 'substantially less than or substantially inferior' to those provinces enjoy under the Interim Constitution. Both issues are directly related to specific requirements of the Constitutional Principles. Chapters V and VII, comprising about half of the judgment, deal with these issues.
The Court's ultimate finding was that the constitutional text cannot be certified as complying fully with the Constitutional Principles. The following instances of non-compliance were identified:
Section 23, which fails to comply with the provisions of CP XXVIII in that the right of individual employers to engage in collective bargaining is not recognised and protected. Section 241(1), which fails to comply with the provisions of CP IV and CP VII in that it impermissibly shields an ordinary statute from constitutional review. Schedule 6 s 22(1)(b), which fails to comply with the provisions of CP IV and CP VII in that it impermissibly shields an ordinary statute from constitutional review. Section 74, which fails to comply with -
CP XV in that amendments of the NT do not require 'special procedures involving special majorities'; and CP II in that the fundamental rights, freedoms and civil liberties protected in the NT are not 'entrenched'.
Section 194, which fails in respect of the Public Protector and the Auditor-General to comply with CP XXIX in that it does not adequately provide for and safeguard the independence and impartiality of these institutions. Section 196, which fails to comply with -
CP XXIX in that the independence and impartiality of the PSC is not adequately provided for and safeguarded; and CP XX in that the failure to specify the powers and functions of the Public
Service Commission renders it impossible to certify that legitimate provincial autonomy has been recognised and promoted.
Chapter 7, which fails to comply with -
CP XXIV in that it does not provide a 'framework for the structures' of local government; CP XXV in that it does not provide for appropriate fiscal powers and functions for local government; and CP X in that it does not provide for formal legislative procedures to be adhered to by legislatures at local government level.
Section 229, which fails to comply with CP XXV in that it does not provide for 'appropriate fiscal powers and functions for different categories of local government'. To the extent set out in the judgment the provisions relating to the powers and functions of the provinces were held to fail to comply with CP XVIII.2 in that 'such powers and functions are substantially less than and inferior to the powers and functions of the provinces in the IC.'
The Court emphasised that the constitutional text represents a monumental achievement. The basic structure of the proposed constitution is sound and the overwhelming majority of the requirements of the Constitutional Principles have been satisfied. The instances of non-compliance that have been identified should present no significant obstacle to the CA in formulating a text which complies fully with those requirements.
Judgment was delivered by the full Court.
Vivien Hart
Democratic ConstitutionMaking
Briefly . . .
• We live in an era of constitution making. Writing a constitution is part of many peace
processes. New nations and radically new regimes that seek democratic credentials make
writing a constitution a priority. In a changing world, constitutional practice is also
changing. Twenty-first century constitutionalism is redefining the long tradition of
expert constitution making and bringing it into the sphere of democratic participation.
• How the constitution is made, as well as what it says, matters. Process has become
equally as important as the content of the final document for the legitimacy of a new
constitution.
• A right to public participation in democratic governance exists in international law.
This right packs a moral punch but it lacks legal teeth and effective enforcement.
Does this right extend from everyday governance to the process of constitution mak-
ing? The United Nations Committee on Human Rights has recognized a specific right
to participate in constitution making.
• Public participation is often taken to mean voting— for example, electing a consti-
tutional convention or ratifying a constitutional text by referendum. Especially in
developing nations in Africa and elsewhere, however, experiments with new forms of
participation are attempting to place initiative in the hands of citizens and to create
an open constitutional conversation in which the public shares in agenda-setting,
content, and ratification.
• Genuine public participation requires social inclusion, personal security, and freedom of
speech and assembly. A strong civil society, civic education, and good channels of com-
munication between all levels of society facilitate this process. Only a considerable com-
mitment of time and resources will make genuine public participation possible.
• A democratic constitution cannot be written for a nation, nor can one be written in
haste. “ Interim” or “ transitional” constitutions that include guarantees for a contin-
uing, open, and inclusive process for the longer term offer one solution to urgent
needs for a framework of governance in new, divided, or war-torn nations.
www.usip.org
SPECI AL REPORT1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063
SPECIAL REPORT 107 JULY 2003
ABOUT THE REPORT
This report examines the role of constitution making as
part of peacemaking, particularly in divided societies,
where the process of participatory constitution making
may sometimes provide a forum for reconciling
divisions, negotiating conflict, and redressing
grievances. The report analyzes recent practices of
constitution making across the globe and documents
the emergence of international human rights norms
that recognize the right to public participation in
changing or creating a constitution. The author
concludes with a reflection on lessons learned and
stresses the importance of process as well as outcome
in evaluating the final product.
Vivien Hart is a professor at the University of Sussex,
where she has served since 1991 as the director of the
University's Cunliffe Centre for the Study of Constitu-
tionalism and National Identity, an international
research network involving scholars and activists from
the United Kingdom, Europe, United States, Canada,
South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Fiji. Her most recent book,
Women Making Constitutions, edited with Alexandra
Dobrowolsky, is due out this fall from Palgrave
Macmillan. Hart was a senior fellow in the U.S.
Institute of Peace's Jennings Randolph Program for
International Peace in 2002–2003.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily
reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace,
which does not advocate specific policies.
UNI TED STATES I NSTI TUTE OF PEACE
CONTENTS
Constitution Making: Tradition and Innovation 2
Constitution Making for the 21st Century 2
The Importance of Process 4
Participation by Right 5
Practicing Participatory Constitutionalism 7
Women Making Constitutions 10
Lessons for the Constitution-Making Process 11
ABOUT THE I NSTITUTE
The United States Institute of Peace is an
independent, nonpartisan federal institution
created by Congress to promote the prevention,
management, and peaceful resolution of interna-
tional conflicts. Established in 1984, the Insti-
tute meets its congressional mandate through an
array of programs, including research grants,
fellowships, professional training, education
programs from high school through graduate
school, conferences and workshops, library ser-
vices, and publications. The Institute’s Board of
Directors is appointed by the President of the
United States and confirmed by the Senate.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), James R. Schlesinger
Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign Service,
Georgetown University • Seymour Martin Lipset (Vice
Chairman), Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George
Mason University • Betty F. Bumpers, Founder and
former President, Peace Links, Washington, D.C.
• Holly J. Burkhalter, Advocacy Director, Physicians for
Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Marc E. Leland, Esq.,
President, Marc E. Leland & Associates, Arlington, Va.
• Mora L. McLean, Esq., President, Africa-America Insti-
tute, New York, N.Y. • María Otero, President, ACCION
International, Boston, Mass. • Barbara W. Snelling, for-
mer State Senator and former Lieutenant Governor, Shel-
burne, Vt. • Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President,
American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
Washington, D.C.
MEMBERS EX OFFICIO
Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • Douglas J.
Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy • Paul G.
Gaffney I I , Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, National
Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, President,
United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
2
• Participatory constitution making is today a fact of constitutional life as well as a good
in itself. Despite challenging difficulties of definition and implementation, a demo-
cratic constitution-making process is, in the words of African observer Julius Ivon-
hbere, “critical to the strength, acceptability, and legitimacy of the final product.”
Constitution Making: Tradition and Innovation
We live in an era of constitution making. Of close to 200 national constitutions in exis-
tence today, more than half have been written or re-written in the last quarter century.
Constitution making has become a part of many peace processes. New nations and rad-
ically new regimes, seeking the democratic credentials that are often a condition for
recognition by other nations and by international political, financial, aid, and trade organ-
izations, make writing a constitution a priority. In many cases, both the ways in which
constitutions are written and the ideas of sovereignty, citizenship, and rights that are
embodied in these foundational documents depart radically from the tradition epitomized
by the United States Constitution.
In 1787, the new United States of America was the originator and model of tradi-
tional constitution making by a hand-picked elite group, and of the constitution as mark-
ing a settlement of conflict and inaugurating a new regime of powers and rights.
Mainstream scholarship has generally presented the American Constitution as the fixed
outcome of a period of nation building and constitution making. Admirers, offering this
as an example for others, tend to want to duplicate its perceived virtues: constitution
making as an “act of completion,” the constitution as a final settlement or social con-
tract in which basic political definitions, principles, and processes are agreed, as is a
commitment to abide by them.
Constitution makers today still confront the problem posed by Alexander Hamilton in
1787, of whether “societies . . . are really capable or not of establishing good govern-
ment from reflection or choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their
political constitutions on accident and force.” The makers of “new” constitutions do not
seek to throw the entire tradition onto the scrap heap. Constitutions remain higher law,
specify the institutions of governance, define the rights, duties, and relationships of
state and citizens, and set the tone or establish the identity of the nation-state. Onto
this traditional foundation, however, today’s framers seek to build new practices. Recent
constitution-making processes have been accompanied by massive efforts to involve the
public before, during, and after the text is finalized. Examples of new practice include:
prior agreement on broad principles as a first phase of constitution making; an interim
constitution to create space for longer term democratic deliberation; civic education and
media campaigns; the creation and guarantee of channels of communication, right down
to local discussion forums; elections for constitution-making assemblies; open drafting
committees aspiring to transparency of decision making; and approval by various com-
binations of representative legislatures, courts, and referendums.
There is no simple transition to a new constitutionalism. Control of the process and
of the ultimate distribution of power is at stake and participatory constitution making
remains highly controversial. Constitution making has not been made easier, and by no
means all of these innovations, nor of the constitutions that result, have been success-
ful. But the process does move incrementally closer to the needs of the present day.
Constitution Making for the 21st Century
Alexander Hamilton’s still-open question remains central to prospects for a peaceful and
democratic world. In the 21st century, proof of our capacity for living together and shar-
ing in good government is not only ever more urgently needed but also requires— and
3
is generating— creative thinking about the making and content of present-day “politi-
cal constitutions.” Constitutional experimentation in many new and newly democratic
nations challenges o lder constitutional democracies to rethink their own practice and to
engage in a process of mutual learning about the contribution of constitution making
to conflict transformation and sustainable peace.
A nation confident in a stable future of internal harmony and agreed purpose is not
( if it ever was) the typical site of constitution making today. A changed world calls the
utility of the traditional model of the constitution into question. Consider how high a
bar that traditional model of an act of completion sets to establishing and legitimating
constitutions in situations of conflict. Yet making a traditional constitution is seen by
many as essential to the establishment of post-conflict governance by providing a frame-
work to manage diversity and ensure stability.
The late 20th century has seen nations, o ld and young, that are deeply divided, often
to the point of vio lence. Nation-states, defined by established boundaries and the sole
po ssessio n o f so vereignty, have been challenged fro m inside by c laims fo r self-
determination or secession, and from without by the proliferation of transnational polit-
ical or economic treaties and powers with global reach. At the same time, successful eco-
nomic and social development have been declared, as in the 1993 Vienna Declaration of
the United Nations that now frames development and human rights policy, to go hand
in hand with democratization. Meanwhile around the world many marginalized groups—
indigenous peoples; the poor; racial, ethnic, and language identity groups; and, cutting
across all social categories, women— have demanded inclusion, political participation,
and power sharing.
Conflicts over the identities, powers, and rights of groups seem almost endemic, and,
as such conflicts reproduce themselves in the form of new identities and claims, are like-
ly to be a permanent feature of 21st century polities. The nature of many modern con-
flicts makes a final resolution hard to reach. In such circumstances, finding a way of
living together within major disagreement is the more modest goal. Traditional consti-
tution making as a conclusion of conflict and codification of a settlement that intends
permanence and stability can seem to threaten rather than reassure. Citizens who actively
reject a final act of closure seek instead assurances that constitution making will not
freeze the present distribution of power into place for the long term, nor exclude the
possibility of new participants and different outcomes.
To imagine a constitutional settlement under which diverse and disagreeing groups
can live, while continuing to engage in a freely accessible debate about that settlement
itself, is a challenging proposition. The tension between the security and stability
offered by the traditional ideal of constitutionalism and the flexibility called for by new
circumstances is what places process at the heart of the new constitutionalism. A per-
manently open process must itself satisfy qualitative standards that were previously
applied only to the outcome of constitution making. We used to think of a constitution
as a contract, negotiated by appropriate representatives, concluded, signed, and
observed. The constitution of new constitutionalism is, in contrast, a conversation, con-
ducted by all concerned, open to new entrants and issues, seeking a workable formula
that will be sustainable rather than assuredly stable.
It is in such an environment of conversational constitutionalism that the issue (star-
tling to some traditionalists) of a right to participate in making a constitution has
arisen. The idea is hotly contested by those who argue that only elites in modern soci-
eties possess the moderation, technical expertise, negotiating skills, ability to maintain
confidentiality, and above all rational incentives to compromise so as to maintain power
that make for effective constitution making. But it is hard to argue against democracy.
The elite-made constitution, according to the new paradigm, will lack the crucial cul-
tural element of legitimacy. It will do so because the process, not just the final text, is
seen as flawed.
A democratic constitution is no longer simply one that establishes democratic
We live in an era of consti-
tut ion making. Of close to
200 national constitut ions in
existence today, more than half
have been writ ten or re-writ ten
in the last quarter century.
Tradit ional constitut ion making
as a . . . codificat ion of a
sett lement that intends perma-
nence and stability can seem to
threaten rather than reassure.
4
governance. It is also a constitution that is made in a democratic process. There is thus
a moral claim to participation, according to the norms of democracy. A claim of neces-
sity for participation is based on the belief that without the general sense of “owner-
ship” that comes from sharing authorship, today’s public will not understand, respect,
support, and live within the constraints of constitutional government. Whether there is
also a legal right to participate, for whom, and what all of this means in practical terms,
are also key issues for modern constitutionalism, whose reputation and effectiveness
depend upon democracy in its process as well as its outcome. Experiments with public
participation in the process of making constitutions are a striking feature of “new con-
stitutionalism.” It is with such issues of process that this report is concerned.
The Importance of Process
How the constitution is made, as well as what it says, matters. One of the most strik-
ing innovations in the constitution-making practice of recent decades is that norms of
democratic procedure, transparency, and accountability that are applied to daily politi-
cal decision making are now also demanded for constitutional deliberations. Is this win-
dow dressing with democratic rhetoric, or can new ideas and practices make a
difference? A study in contrasts in North American constitutionalism illustrates the rad-
ical changes in attitude to constitution making involved.
No one would expect an 18th century process to match the standards of the 21st
century. Nor would anyone describe the making of the American Constitution in 1787
as a democratic exemplar for today. Yet constitution making in the United States offers
an important lesson. Scholars have recently reflected on Article V of the U.S. Constitu-
tion, the provision for constitutional amendment, as an admission by the framers of the
likely imperfection of the Constitution and a permission to work within its frame to
adjust its terms (see especially Sanford Levinson’s edited volume, Responding to Imper-
fection, published in 1995) . Yet the limitations of the amending process are consider-
able. The fact that the wishes and needs of indigenous peoples and African Americans
were originally considered irrelevant, and that those of women were considered to be
represented by men, left the American polity with long-term problems. When newly
assertive groups eventually demanded recognition, finding solutions was hampered by
the necessity of acting within the constitutional framework, drafting amendments and
litigation according to a text set apart, a foundational document outside the bounds of
regular politics. The Constitution is subject to special and especially difficult procedures
for amendment and the language of constitutional law is arcane. Thus even the first step
for excluded groups, entry to the constitutional debate, has never been easy. Gaining
each amendment or new interpretation has typically involved a decades-long struggle
for piecemeal reform.
Facing a similar upsurge of claims for constitutional recognition, Canada has taken a
significant step towards opening the constitutional settlement to full democratic discus-
sion. No less a body than the Canadian Supreme Court has endorsed democratic process,
in its advice on the constitutional position of a potential act of secession by the province
of Quebec. The Court’s 1998 decision regarding the Reference re Secession of Quebec
defined democracy as a core Canadian constitutional principle. This meant, the court
declared, “that a functioning democracy required a continuous process of discussion.” The
court noted further that “no one has a monopoly on truth,” a fact implying a duty to lis-
ten to “dissenting voices” and to seek “to acknowledge and address those voices,” even
when the most basic unity of the nation was at stake. The Canadian Constitution, the court
concluded, “gives expression to this principle [of democracy] by conferring a right to ini-
tiate constitutional change on each participant” and imposing “a corresponding duty . . .
to engage in constitutional discussions in order to acknowledge and address democratic
expressions of a desire for change.” The Canadian Supreme Court decision is a summation
There is a moral claim to
part icipat ion, according to
the norms of democracy.
Norms of democrat ic procedure,
transparency, and accounta-
bility that are applied to daily
polit ical decision making are
now also demanded for
constitut ional deliberat ions.
Canada has taken a significant
step towards opening the
constitutional settlement to
full democratic discussion.
5
of new constitutionalism, of constitution making as a process rather than a once-and-for-
all defining moment, and of democratic re-negotiation as the heart of a politics of recog-
nition and inclusion. The Canadian Constitution is defined as a forum for a historically
continuous discussion of the identity of the Canadian nation.
In other words, participatory constitution making has become one criterion of a legit-
imate process. Where the premise of constitutionalism as conversation is taken on board,
constitution making can no longer be confined exclusively to the domain of “high poli-
tics” and negotiations among elites who draft texts behind closed doors. In the context
of a traditional constitution, presumed to stand above and to structure democratic poli-
tics, the extension of democratic process to include free, open, and responsive discussion
of the constitutional settlement itself represents a radical departure, but one that
attempts to overcome the problems of entry of new participants and of an equal voice
for all concerned regardless of their expertise.
Participation by Right
It is easy to say that public participation in constitution making is desirable. But this
remains a matter of opinion and matters of opinion are hard to enforce. A right to pub-
lic participation in constitution making creates a stronger ground on which to stand.
Major international rights instruments and national constitutions do grant a general right
to democratic participation, although one that is lacking legal teeth and effective
enforcement. However, the extension of the right to participate to constitution making,
breaching traditional assumptions that the constitution-making process stands outside
normal democratic activities, has been contested. For a long time, even general demo-
cratic participation has been considered at best to be an “emerging right,” in the words
of an influential article on “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,” by interna-
tional law professor Thomas M. Franck (published in the American Journal of International
Law for 1992) . But the formal endorsement of democracy does pack a moral punch and
its diffusion in international conventions and new national constitutions supports expec-
tations that it should be observed in constitution-making processes. And recent devel-
o pments have g iven partic ipatio n in co nstitutio n making a textual autho rity in
international law that greatly strengthens its status. These occur in a decision of the
United Nations Committee on Human Rights (UNCHR) acting in its judicial capacity, and
in a General Comment from the same source, both interpreting the right granted in the
United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( ICCPR) as extending
to constitution making.
The right to participate in constitution making might logically be derived from the gen-
eral meaning of “democratic participation” in the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948,
Article 21) and especially Article 25 of the ICCPR (a covenant agreed in 1966 and entered
into force in 1976). Article 25 establishes a right to participate in public affairs, to vote,
and to have access to public service: “Every citizen shall have the right and the opportu-
nity . . . without unreasonable restrictions: (a) to take part in the conduct of public affairs,
directly or through freely chosen representatives; (b) to vote and to be elected at genuine
periodic elections which shall be by universal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot,
guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors; (c) to have access, on general
terms of equality, to public service in his country.”
Later UN conventions and declarations against race and gender discrimination and on
the rights of minorities make similar promises. Regional and transnational declarations
such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981, Article 13.1) , the Asian
Charter of Rights (1998, Article 5.2) , and the Inter-American Democratic Charter (2001)
all declare a general right to political participation to be a fundamental principle.
As international lawyer Gregory H. Fox noted in a volume edited with Brad R. Roth,
Democratic Governance and International Law (2000) , at the start this “modest approach
The extension of democrat ic
process . . . at tempts to
overcome the problems of entry
of new part icipants and of an
equal voice for all concerned
regardless of their expert ise.
Recent developments have given
participation in constitution
making a textual authority in
international law that greatly
strengthens its status.
to democratization” generally “focused on electoral processes.” But successive docu-
ments and judicial interpretations have gradually expanded the content of participation
itself, the arenas of participation, and the accompanying penumbra of rights ( including
political equality, freedom of speech and association, and rights to inclusion and equal-
ity) that genuine participation presupposes. Along the way, the meaning of the ICCPR
phrase, “to take part in the conduct of public affairs,” has increasingly been explored to
discover what those open-ended terms, “take part” and “public affairs,” might mean. In
the course of this process of definition, two documentary sources have jo ined the record
and now ground the international right to participate in constitution making. Remark-
ably well-hidden in the body of UN political rights doctrine, these can be described as
both under-used to date, and also ripe for development.
The first is a ruling in 1991 from the UNCHR, acting in its judicial capacity to hear
individual complaints under Optional Protocol I to the ICCPR. Marshall v. Canada (Human
Rights Committee, CCPR/ C/ 43/ D/ 205/ 1986, 3 December 1991) , a case brought in 1986
and decided five years later, first authorized a specific right to participate in constitu-
tion making as an undoubted part of public affairs. Leaders of the Mikmaq tribal society
made the claim against the Canadian government that exclusion from direct participa-
tion in a series of constitutional conferences “ infringed their right to take part in the
conduct of public affairs, in vio lation of article 25(a) of the covenant [ the ICCPR].” The
UNCHR ruled that: “At issue in the present case is whether the constitutional conferences
constituted a “conduct of public affairs. . . [and] the committee cannot but conclude that
they do indeed constitute a conduct of public affairs”( italics added) .
Winning only a pyrrhic victory, the Mikmaq people learned that while there was
indeed such a right to participate in constitution making there had been no infringe-
ment in their case. Thus the Mikmaq people’s efforts, while gaining legal standing for the
right to participate in constitution making, also succeeded in establishing a major limi-
tation to the practical value of the legal right. The UNCHR also ruled that: “It is for the
legal and constitutional system of the state party to provide for the modalities of such
participation,” and “Article 25(a) of the covenant cannot be understood as meaning that
any directly affected group, large or small, has the unconditional right to choose the
modalities of participation in public affairs. That, in fact, would be an extrapolation of
the right to direct participation by the citizens, far beyond the scope of Article 25(a) .”
Although the Mikmaq leaders stated that their submissions through an intermediary body
had never even been laid on the table, the UNCHR found the Canadian provisions for the
representation of “approximately 600 aboriginal groups” by “four national associations,”
and later by “a ‘panel’ of up to 10 aboriginal leaders,” adequate to meet the requirements
of Article 25.
The second UNCHR textual authority is found in its General Comment on Article 25 of
the ICCPR, the right to participation, issued on July 12, 1996. First, the key importance
of Article 25’s general right to participation is underlined: “Whatever form of constitu-
tion or government is in force, the covenant requires states . . . to ensure that citizens
have an effective opportunity to enjoy the rights it protects. Article 25 lies at the core
of democratic government.” The General Comment then declares decisively: “ Citizens also
participate directly in the conduct of public affairs when they choose or change their con-
stitution” ( italics added) . Although the prevailing opinion is that a General Comment is
authoritative but not binding in law, this unequivocal statement, coupled with the ear-
lier judicial precedent, undoubtedly does place participatory constitutionalism on a
newly secure footing.
Like Marshall v. Canada, the General Comment lacks any specification of what a par-
ticipatory constitution-making process would look like. But unlike most of the interna-
tional conventions that preceded it, as well as the very limited notion of representation
in Marshall v. Canada, the General Comment does explicitly expand the scope of demo-
cratic participation beyond the act of voting. Assemblies and accountable representa-
tion, referenda and electoral decision making, “public debate and dialogue,” and citizens’
6
“Cit izens also part icipate
direct ly in the conduct of public
affairs when they choose or
change their constitut ion.”
“capacity to organize themselves” are all identified as modes of participation. Thus the
support in international law for a right to participate in constitution making is, inch by
inch, gaining footing and expanding in scope. In the meantime, the practice of partici-
patory constitution making in many parts of the world is running ahead of the interna-
tional rulebook.
Practicing Participatory Constitutionalism
Public participation is often taken to mean voting, as for example electing a constitu-
tional convention or ratifying a constitutional text by a referendum. As we saw earlier,
Canada provided one early example of groups from outside the closed circle demanding
to jo in the constitution making process. But especially in developing nations in Africa
and elsewhere, experiments with new structures and forms of participation are attempt-
ing to develop an open process that places initiative in the hands of citizens and cre-
ates a constitutional conversation. In many cases, rather than working within the
framework of an existing body of procedures and precedents, these nations are starting
with a clean slate.
Canada’s clean slate was the process of writing a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
ratified in 1982. Canadian constitutionalism since the 18th century had been shaped by
conflict, especially the search for reconciliation of francophone and anglophone inter-
ests and for a status for Quebec that would recognize its distinctive identity without giv-
ing it special privileges. In the early 1980s, women mobilized to insist that their
interests be fully represented. Canadian first nations also seized the moment to claim a
special status in Canadian governance. The constitutional conversation had broadened
and deepened long before the open-ended discussion of diversity was endorsed as a prin-
ciple by the Supreme Court. But we do not need to look only to the o lder western lib-
eral democracies for new standards. The recent record of constitution making elsewhere
abounds with experiments in public participation.
Just a few examples suffice to illustrate the widespread adoption of new and open
processes. In 1986, the Nicaraguan National Assembly invited comment on the draft of
a new constitution. Some 100,000 citizens took part in open town meetings, forwarding
4,300 suggestions. In 1988, constitution makers in Uganda and Brazil requested sug-
gestions before, as well as comment after, the drafting process, with equally impressive
levels of response. In 1994, the South African Constitutional Assembly encouraged a
nation of first-time voters to participate in the constitution-making process with the slo -
gan: “You’ve made your mark, now have your say.” Polls estimated that 73 percent of
South Africans were reached by the assembly’s campaign. The public made two million
submissions. Between 1994 and 1997, Eritreans engaged in constitutional education and
consultation, addressing a nation with markedly low literacy rates through songs, poems,
stories, and plays in vernacular languages, and using radio and mobile theatre to reach
local communities. In 2002, members of the Rwanda drafting commission and thousands
of trained assistants fanned out to spend six months in the provinces, so that constitu-
tional education and discussion could become an integral part of community life. In
2003, the constitution review process in Kenya is operating under a statutory require-
ment that Kenyans have every opportunity to participate. The goal, as the Kenyan Com-
mission claimed, is “a people-driven review process whose final product will be a
people-owned constitution.”
The South African Constitution of 1996 is widely regarded as a model constitutional
text. Likewise, the process by which it was made has been hailed as a key part of the suc-
cessful transition from the oppression of apartheid to a democratic society. The following
features of the South African process illustrate the context and challenges of democratic
constitution making and set the context for evaluating its general potential and problems.
In all, it took seven years, from 1989 to 1996, to achieve the final constitution.
7
The practice of part icipatory
constitut ion making in many
parts of the world is running
ahead of the international
rulebook.
Especially in developing nations
in Africa and elsewhere, experi-
ments with new structures and
forms of part icipat ion are
attempting to develop an open
process that places init iat ive in
the hands of cit izens.
The South African Constitution
of 1996 is widely regarded as a
model constitutional text.
Almost five years elapsed between the first meeting of Nelson Mandela and Prime Min-
ister P. W. Botha in 1989 and agreement on an interim constitution and the first non-
racial election in 1994. Throughout these years, outbreaks of vio lence threatened the
process.
In a key phase from 1990 to 1994, agreements on process were negotiated in private
and public sessions between former adversaries. These included a 1990 agreement to
negotiate about constitutional negotiations; prolonged arguments from 1991 through
1992 about the form the constitution-making process should take; agreement in April
1993 on procedures; and in December 1993 agreement on an interim constitution includ-
ing principles and procedures binding on the final constitution-making process. In April
1994, the first non-racial election for parliament was held with a voter turnout of about
86 percent. The fo llowing month, the new parliament met for the first time as the Con-
stitutional Assembly.
From 1994 through 1996 the South African process became a full-scale demonstra-
tion of participatory constitution making. Until that time, the public had had no direct
role in constitution making. Now their elected representatives in the assembly reached
out to educate them and invite their views. The educational effort included a media and
advertising campaign using newspapers, radio and television, billboards, and the sides
of buses; an assembly newspaper with a circulation of 160,000; cartoons; a web site;
and public meetings; together these efforts reached an estimated 73 percent of the pop-
ulation. From 1994 through 1996 the Constitutional Assembly received two million sub-
missions, from individuals and many advocacy groups, professional associations, and
other interests.
In the final phase from 1994 through 1996, in tandem with the participatory cam-
paign, committees of the assembly drafted a new constitution within the parameters
attached to the 1994 interim constitution; a first working draft was published in Novem-
ber 1995, leaving aside 68 issues for further work; a revised draft was produced in April
1996; and a final text in May 1996. From July through September 1996 the Constitu-
tional Court reviewed the text; the court then returned the text to the assembly for
amendments, which were made in October. In November, the court gave its final certifi-
cation and in December, President Mandela signed the constitution into law.
The South African process took time. It was phased. It benefited from an interim con-
stitution that allowed the dialogue of transition to continue. Participation was invited
at a chosen moment rather than throughout and then creativity and resources were com-
mitted to facilitating a serious dialogue. Trust that the outcome would be consistent
with the 1994 democratic principles was created by the continuation of the conversa-
tion between judicial certification and parliamentary confirmation. As in Canada, groups
including women and traditional authorities found voice and access and made sure that
their interests were taken into account. Also important was the fact that South Africa
had a pre-existing civil society that could be drawn in as a counterweight to the
entrenched racial and partisan divisions of politics. Other important factors that sus-
tained the formal process include patience, especially in the face of vio lence; a willing-
ness by all concerned to take some bold steps; and a combination of negotiation in
private over some of the most difficult issues and unprecedented public involvement.
For comparison, let us look at the recent Rwandan process, promised by the Arusha
Peace Accord of 1999, with the main phase of constitution making implemented in 2002
and completed by a referendum in May 2003. The Action Plan of the Constitutional Com-
mission elected by the National Assembly ( it can be found in full at www.cjcr.gov.rw)
required, in sequence, in its own words:
• The training and sensitization of the population about the Constitution;
• The consultation of the population on the content of the Constitution;
• The writing and validation of the draft text of the Constitution;
• The referendum on the text of the Constitution as approved by Parliament.
8
The South African process took
time. It was phased. It benefited
from an interim constitution
that allowed the dialogue of
transition to continue.
The budget for these activities ran to about US$7 million, the 12 commissioners spent
six months participating in local programs and debates, and in the final referendum almost
90 percent of the electorate voted, with 93 percent of those voting approving the new con-
stitution. Notably, public participation was initiated even before a constitutional text was
drafted. Again, the process was carefully staged, the commitment of time and resources was
considerable, and participation was not simply structured on existing party lines.
The Rwandan process, as too the current Kenyan process, also suggests another char-
acteristic of these creatively participatory processes. Constitutional re-visioning comes
into play when the alternative is unsustainable or too dire to contemplate, whether that
be dictatorial oppression, vio lence, or genocide. A democratic constitution-making
process contributes to making peace because the prerequisite of any livable alternative
to the horrors many nations have experienced is that all parties are willing to try to keep
talking about their disagreements. Using words that echo Alexander Hamilton’s, quoted
above, philosopher Stuart Hampshire concluded in his recent book, Justice Is Conflict
(2000) : “Because there will always be conflicts between conceptions of the good, . . .
there is everywhere a well-recognized need for procedures of conflict resolution, which
can replace brute force and domination and tyranny.” The quality of the process as a
means of conflict transformation lies in ensuring that all who have views and grievances
have an effective voice, that participation is genuine and not a charade.
Constitution making is essentially about the distribution of power. Unsurprisingly, the
idealism of the innovations described above must be tempered with realism about who
is really in charge. In both South Africa and Rwanda, political elites initiated the process
of constitutional change, provided the personnel for the key institutions, and framed the
educational campaigns. Official ambivalence and continuing attempts to block the
process in Kenya reveal how a participatory process initiated from perceived political
necessity can threaten an elite with loss of control and incur their resistance. At the most
cynical extreme, a determined elite or one that is confident of its continuing control may
offer a participatory process as a charade, a democratic hoax intended to mollify unrest
by granting the appearance of democracy without its substance. The achievements of
participatory constitution making, then, are not to be romanticized.
Zimbabwe’s recent experience provides a cautionary tale. In 1997 civil society groups
and the political opposition formed an umbrella organization that pressed for a consti-
tution-making process and insisted that this be conducted on participatory lines. In
1999, President Robert Mugabe reluctantly established a commission that was instruct-
ed to produce a draft constitution with the fullest public consultation. On paper, the offi-
cial Observer Mission of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD, a London- and
Lagos- based non-governmental organization) reported a model process: public hearings,
an outreach program of town hall meetings and other community activities, a multilin-
gual media campaign, scientific polling, an international conference. Their report (The
Zimbabwe Constitutional Referendum, published in 2000) estimates that “the commission
received about 7000 written submissions, held more than 4000 meetings nationwide and
interacted directly in public meetings with more than half a million people.” But behind
the formal facts lay a manipulative process. The appointed commission was controlled by
the president’s party; only 13 percent were women. Bitter partisan disputes, intimida-
tion, and vio lence erupted. The commission’s draft constitution was sent to President
Mugabe without any opportunity for further public comment. He quickly forwarded it for
a referendum vote without possibility of amendment. In February 2000, the electorate
rejected the draft constitution by 54 to 46 percent.
Immediately after the vote Lewis Machipisa editorialized in Africa News that this “ ‘no ’
vote is also a ‘no ’ vote against the arrogance that we experienced from the government.
They didn’t treat us as people who mattered.” A survey reported by Masipula Sithole and
Charles Mangongera in the journal Agenda in March 2001 found that 43 percent of “no”
voters believed that “most people rejected the draft constitution because it did not fully
take into account the expressed wishes of the people.” As the CDD concluded, “a flawed
9
Constitut ion making is
essentially about the
distribution of power.
A determined elite or one that
is confident of its continuing
control may offer a participatory
process as a charade, a demo-
cratic hoax intended to mollify
unrest.
Zimbabwe’s recent experience
provides a cautionary tale.
process could only produce a flawed product.” The process, CDD reported, was stacked,
lacked transparency, was short on education and on translations from English, was rushed
(taking a mere 10 months all to ld) , and ultimately lacked credibility. The only recourse
for frustrated Zimbabweans was the negative one of voting down the entire document.
Women Making Constitutions
One further characteristic of the practice of participatory constitution making is visible
in many of these accounts, yet has received little concerted comment. The pressure to
resolve conflict through constitutional conversation has often come from long-term dis-
agreements, conflicts, and wars over some combination of racial, ethnic, and territorial
boundaries. Where participatory constitution making has offered a forum for reconciling
division and redressing grievances, it has often also provided an opportunity for women
to gain representation in process and outcome. Indeed, women have at times been
instrumental in demanding such a constitutional opening, where governance or social
conditions have previously made free entry difficult or silenced their voices.
In Nicaragua in 1986 women’s effectiveness was a matter of comment by seasoned
observer Andrew Reding. He reported in his article “By the People,” published in Christianity
and Crisis: “The women stunned everyone. Hundreds of them took turns denouncing the
language of the first constitutional draft. This in spite of the fact that the draft was already
strong on women’s rights.” Ugandan women mobilized to participate in the 10-year con-
stitution-making process; the constitution that came into force in 1996 was described by
Oliver Furley and James Katalikawe (in African Affairs for 1997) as outstanding in “the
degree to which it attempts to promote and protect the rights of women.” In 1992–93,
Cambodia, in a constitution-making process assisted by the United Nations as a way for-
ward from a violent past, provided one of many examples of women’s important role in
newly open processes. Women comprised 63 percent of the Cambodian population, and,
Stephen P. Marks reported in a paper prepared in 2003 for the U.S. Institute of Peace pro-
ject on Constitution Making, Peacebuilding, and National Reconciliation, a women's move-
ment emerged that demanded a role in making Cambodia’s new constitution: “During a
four-day National Women's Summit, . . . 109 women from eight provinces spoke out on
this issue. One of the organizers . . . said, ‘We want to participate at all levels of policy-
making, including drafting the new constitution.’ ” Thus South African women had prece-
dents to follow when they called for (and won) a presence on the crucial drafting
committees there, strong guarantees of gender equality, and protections against discrimi-
nation. In Rwanda as in Cambodia, in the wake of destructive civil war, women again com-
prised a large majority of the population. Three of the twelve commissioners in Rwanda
were women, as were seven of twenty-nine Constitution Review commissioners in Kenya.
Participatory constitution making is by definition inclusive. Yet in few nations do
women, in the words of the ICCPR, “take part in the conduct of public affairs” on an
equal basis with men. Women are usually demographically a majority, the more so in
some post-conflict nations where the loss of male lives or the flight of males has grossly
skewed the ratio . As democratization and development have become linked in interna-
tional programs, women’s education, social contribution, and political participation have
been identified as important to success. The institutionalization of an international
women’s movement and opportunities for networking and sharing experience through
events such as the United Nations’ World Conferences on Women have provided motiva-
tion and support to women to seek out the formative moment of constitution making in
order to ensure gender fairness in any new regime. Furthermore, women’s presence across
all party lines and demographic categories sometimes enables them to unite, or to
resolve disputes across otherwise sharp dividing lines, as the Northern Ireland Women’s
Coalition is credited with having done on several occasions in the negotiation for and
implementation of the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
Part icipatory constitut ion
making . . . has often provided
an opportunity for women to
gain representat ion in process
and outcome.
10
Women’s presence across all
party lines and demographic
categories sometimes enables
them to unite, or to resolve
disputes across otherwise
sharp dividing lines.
Women are not primarily responsible for the initiation of participatory practices,
whose origins are multiple— in human rights debates, in democratization movements, in
anti-co lonial movements structured on democratic lines, and other places. Women may,
however, both particularly benefit from constitutional change, with its opportunities for
inclusion, and support and encourage the expansion of participatory methods. Fiona
Mackay and others, in a forthcoming essay ( in Women Making Constitutions, edited by
Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Vivien Hart, October 2003) offer evidence that women in pol-
itics on the whole display “a more outward looking and collective orientation,” and will
emphasize “establishing a dialogue based on evidence and prior preparation.” We may
learn from such evidence that women bring attitudes and experience highly appropriate
to democratic constitution making and that their increasing participation will give impe-
tus and depth to developing practice.
Lessons for the Constitution-Making Process
At its best, participatory constitutionalism works and counteracts the arguments in sup-
port of elite negotiation as the sole effective mode. At its worst, as in Zimbabwe, it pro-
vides only another guise for the exercise of raw power. In Zimbabwe, the public saw
through the hoax and responded by negating the process with a “no” vote in the referen-
dum of 2000. For vulnerable citizens to have some recourse other than such a negative
response, however, internal contextual factors including a strong civil society or external
factors such as an international right and/ or an international enforcement mechanism are
means of empowerment. Genuine public participation requires social inclusion, personal
security, and freedom of speech and assembly. A strong civil society, civic education, and
good channels of communication between all levels of society further facilitate the process.
Only a considerable commitment of time and resources makes genuine public partic-
ipation possible. Even if we count South Africa’s starting point as the moment of agree-
ment in 1991 to negotiate the process, constitution making in that highly successful
case took at least five years. Many would argue that the process was underway at least
two years before that, from the moment leaders began tentative approaches across the
racial divide; clearly, part of the process is the building of an adequate level of trust
between elites and among the general public to enable a constitutional conversation to
take place at all.
Modes of participation vary considerably— there is no one model appropriate to all
nations. South Africa elected a parliament that acted as the Constitutional Assembly.
Rwanda elected a legislative assembly that itself then elected a Constitutional Commis-
sion. Both nations sought out public opinion through a variety of channels, used media
imaginatively, and devised materials to make constitutional issues accessible in multiple
languages to their populations regardless of levels of literacy.
The public were not involved equally at all stages of the South African and other
processes. While South Africans could fo llow the progress of public negotiations up to
1994, some absolutely critical deadlocks along the way were resolved in secret meetings.
The entire public was first invited to take part in the 1994 election, the most conven-
tional form of participation. But in the South African context, where most of the popu-
lation had previously been excluded on racial grounds, this was a momentous act.
Approximately 86 percent of the population voted. The number of voters, as well as the
number of submissions to the Constitutional Assembly, confirm that the public will par-
ticipate where they see the issues and outcomes as important.
Literacy and language are only two of the factors that have operated to exclude
groups and individuals from constitution making in the past. Participatory processes
have worked to overcome these two factors as well as racial and ethnic exclusions and
have been notable in some nations for the new participation of indigenous peoples and
in most cases for the very visible inclusion of women.
Genuine public participation
requires social inclusion, personal
security, and freedom of speech
and assembly.
11
Participation is now promoted as both a right and a necessity. The right is established
in international declarations and conventions adopted by most nations, as well as in
many recent national constitutions. The necessity stems in part from the forceful advo-
cacy of democracy as the sole model for legitimate governance in a would-be “new world
order.” Ironically, o lder nations in the western liberal tradition from which such calls
have come have not often themselves extended the idea of democratic governance to
constitution making.
Participatory constitution making is a practice with growing momentum, which has
produced some remarkably innovative processes that have helped a “process-driven con-
stitutionalism” to evolve and have changed perspectives on what makes a constitution
legitimate. Participatory constitution making is backed by an international norm and an
emerging legal right. But we are far from any agreed set of standards that would both
satisfy the advocates of “authentic” participation and be enforceable in law. The call for
participation as a right will not go away— the effort for constitution makers must be to
find ways to clarify, implement, and enforce the most effective processes and those most
appropriate for each nation that embarks on this key task of democratic governance.
Despite efforts at external intervention, a democratic constitution cannot be written
for a nation, nor can one be written in haste without breaching the requirements of
democratic process. “Interim” or “transitional” constitutions with guarantees for a con-
tinuing, open, and inclusive process for the longer term offer one solution to urgent
needs for a framework of governance in new, divided, or war-torn nations.
Participatory constitution making is today a fact of constitutional life as well as a
good in itself. Despite challenging difficulties of definition and implementation, a demo-
cratic constitution-making process is, in the words of African observer Julius Ivonhbere,
“critical to the strength, acceptability, and legitimacy of the final product.”
Much of the experience outlined here suggests that this is all easy to say but still hard
to come by. But the idea of constitution making as an open-ended conversation between
all the members of a political community, rather than as the legal and expert drafting of a
contract by a technically qualified elite on behalf of the nation, no longer lurks only on
the fringes of democratic theory. In many parts of the world, participatory constitution
making is more than just an aspiration, it is an emergent international right and an exper-
imental practice. Process has joined outcome as a necessary criterion for legitimating a new
constitution: how the constitution is made, as well as what it says, matters.
For more information on this topic,
see our web site (www.usip.org) ,
which has an online edition of this
report containing links to related web
sites, as well as additional information
on the subject.
Uni ted States
I nst i tute of Peace
1200 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
www.usip.org
A democratic constitution cannot
be written for a nation, nor can
one be written in haste without
breaching the requirements of
democratic process.
Process has joined outcome
as a necessary criterion for
legitimating a new constitution.
CONCILIATORY INSTITUTIONS AND CONSTITUTIONALPROCESSES IN POST-CONFLICT STATES
DONALD L. HOROWITZ*
There are two important questions in post-conflict constitution
making, and at present neither of them has a definitive or uni-
formly accepted answer.' The first relates to the best configuration
of institutions to adopt in order to ameliorate the problem of
intergroup conflict. The second concerns the process most apt to
produce the best configuration of institutions, whatever it might be.
The first question is unanswered because there is a dispute among
scholars and practitioners between two opposing views of appropri-
ate institutions to mitigate conflict.2 Constitutional processes have
not generally been geared to yield coherent exemplars of either
configuration in a sufficient number of conflict-prone countries 3 to
provide a convincing demonstration of the superiority of one
approach or the other. The second question is unanswered because
in many cases constitutional processes are chosen in a haphazard
* James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science, Duke University. This Article
is a product of my project on constitutional design for severely divided societies, funded bythe United States Institute of Peace, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and theCarnegie Scholars program of the Carnegie Corporation. The Eugene T. Bost, Jr., ResearchProfessorship of the Cannon Charitable Trust No. 3 at Duke Law School also facilitatedpreparation of this Article. I am grateful to all of these grantors for their generous assistance.
1. Constitution making is by no means the only significant method of peace buildingafter conflict. For two incisive broader treatments, see ANTHONY OBERSCHALL, CONFLICT
AND PEACE BUILDING IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES (2007); JANE STROMSETH, DAVID WIPPMAN &
ROSA BROOKS, CAN MIGHT MAKE RIGHTS? BUILDING THE RULE OF LAW AFTER MILITARY
INTERVENTIONS (2006).
2. For the essentials of the debate, see AREND LIJPHART, DEMOCRACY IN PLURAL
SOCIETIES (1977) (presenting the consociational view); DONALD L. HOROWITZ, ETHNIC GROUPS
IN CONFLICT 566-76 (2000) [hereinafter ETHNIC GROUPS IN CONFLICT] (criticizing theconsociational view); Donald L. Horowitz, Making Moderation Pay: The Comparative Politics
of Ethnic Conflict Management, in CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING IN MULTIETHNIC SOCIETIES
451 (Joseph V. Montville ed., 1991) [hereinafter Making Moderation Pay] (articulating theincentives view).
3. Some partial exceptions are certain regimes formed after warfare. See infra textaccompanying notes 27-29, 35-49, 102-05.
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WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW
IV. THREE PROBLEMS, THREE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES
There are undoubtedly many processes by which a constitutioncan be made.1 ' Close inspection of constitutional processes wouldreveal a wide variety of specific combinations and sequences ofpractices that could have significant effects on outcomes. Yet it isworth highlighting, if only in a crude way that approximates a firstcut, three general methods of proceeding that bear on the attain-ment of particular goals. The key is to fit the process to theproblem.
As mentioned previously, the literature on public participationand transparency has particular relevance to states in whichdistrust of the sitting regime is prevalent."' Suppose the problemis simply the public acceptability of the deal that moves anauthoritarian state to a democratic regime. There may be indiffer-ence among the particular institutions to be chosen. After all, manycountries can live with some standard version of parliamentary orpresidential institutions. In that case, either sitting politicians andopposition politicians or a separately elected assembly can consum-mate a deal more or less in the open, with a considerable level ofpublic input. The draft can, if necessary, be ratified by the publicin a referendum. Under these conditions, criteria of openness,publicity, and transparency can easily be met. This might be labeledprocess model number one, which responds to problem number one,the problem of distrust of the outgoing regime.
Not all states will meet this description. If the problem is thedifficult one of crafting a set of arrangements that will enableconflicted ethnic groups to share power in a country that needs notonly democratic government but a heavy dose of institutions forconflict reduction, something different may be required. For reasonsalready discussed, ordinary majoritarianism can lead to ethnicexclusion, 1 2 and resort to expert advice is called for. This is aproblem faced by many states.
110. See Jennifer Widner, Constitution Writing and Conflict Resolution, 94 ROUND TABLE
503 (2005) (describing a range of processes).
111. See supra Part III.
112. See supra text accompanying note 6.
1240 [Vol. 49:1213
CONCILIATORY INSTITUTIONS
In this case, an expert body, or expertly informed body, needs to
be commissioned and given time to study and work quietly to devise
a consistent plan that has a fighting chance of producing an
arrangement that will not yield zero-sum results among the ethnic
groups in conflict. Although there needs to be periodic public
consultation, experts also need to be consulted behind closed
doors. There are precedents for organizing such consultations. In
some cases, commissions of inquiry have been appointed to study
and deliberate, with the aid of commission staff and outside
consultants." 3 In others, specially elected constitutional assemblies
have been accorded extended periods of time to consult widely and
produce recommendations." 4 No doubt there are several other ways
of accomplishing the same thing.
However the task is organized, the goal is to produce a coherent,
consistent plan of mutually reinforcing institutions that will work
to reduce conflict. The development of that plan will entail consulta-
tion with political leaders, who, in the end, will need to confer their
assent. Yet-at least in the absence of violent conflict that requires
resolution urgently, usually on a heavily negotiated basis-it is
remarkable how a carefully conceived structure can provide the
time and space for an appropriate degree of comparative learning
and deliberation. If this is achieved, an expert or expert-influenced
draft will not be, and should not be, the last word, but it can be
accorded a starting advantage in structuring public consideration
of constitutional options. A side benefit is that such a process is also
likely to yield an end product that is far more carefully drafted than
many contemporary constitutions have been.
Leaders in severely divided states often lack basic information
about, and nearly always lack sophisticated analysis of, the full
range of available options for constitutional engineering to reduce
conflict. It is often possible to suggest ways in which their basic
interests and those of their groups can be protected without
113. The Fiji Constitution Review Commission is one such example. See supra notes 95-97
and accompanying text.
114. The Nigerian Constituent Assembly, which sat in 1978, is one such example. See
generally L. Adele Jinadu, The Constitutional Situation of the Nigerian States, PUBLIUS,
Winter 1982, at 155; see also Martin Dent, Nigeria Federalism and Ethnic Rivalry, 53
PARLIAMENTARY AFF. 157, 166-67 (2000).
2008] 1241
WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW
requiring them to pursue extreme strategies that produce or
exacerbate intergroup conflict. There are times when leaders areopen to such ideas, especially when the process has been engineeredin such a way that quiets the crisis atmosphere that so frequentlycharacterizes the first phase of democratic constitution makingafter conflict and creates deliberative space.
It should be obvious that the exigencies of such a process are at
odds with the highest levels of openness and public participation,especially during some portions of the early stages, but certainlynot with all public participation and transparency, and that the
process needs to be conceived carefully. This might be labeledprocess model number two, responding to problem number two, the
problem of intergroup conflict.There is, however, a subcategory of severely divided societies that
requires a third model. The assumption thus far has been that anew constitution is required and all parties are open to the idea.The only question relates to the process by which the new document
should be crafted. But suppose this assumption does not prevail.Suppose there is a constitution that is inefficient and perhaps alsoundemocratic, but that nonetheless has considerable claims tolegitimacy for some significant, defined segment of the population.If either of the first two processes is followed, there is a risk ofexacerbating the conflict by the very process of constitutionalrenovation. There is also a risk of creating a serious challenge to thelegitimacy of any constitution that emerges from the process. Ifpoliticians try to do a deal in the open, they will fail, and fail
conspicuously, while simultaneously proving and reinforcing theintractability of their differences. Those who represent the segmentattached to the old constitution will not agree to scrap it. If thesecond process is followed, either the experts will not agree or, ifthey do, the draft will fail when it is sent forward for consideration
by political leaders, because there is no way around the conflictbetween the old constitution, with its loyal adherents, and whatever
is to replace it.
1242 [Vol. 49:1213
CONCILIATORY INSTITUTIONS
Taiwan has this problem," 5 and Indonesia has had it." 6 In each
case, a differentiated segment of the population is or was attached
to the old constitution, which, by any objective standard, is or was
ineffective and in need of thorough renovation. Taiwan has not
solved this problem, but Indonesia has.
Taiwan has a dysfunctional version of a five-branch Confucian
Constitution, drafted for the Republic of China, with the various
branches intruding into matters that might have been reserved to
other branches." 7 Superimposed on this structure is a French-style
semi-presidential arrangement, but with the prime minister
perched anomalously between the president and the Legislative
Yuan and with the directly elected president exercising much less
effective power than might be expected in a semi-presidential
system." 8 Responsibility is diffused in undesirable ways. The
combined Confucian and French features have clearly created
difficulties that demand fundamental restructuring." 9
Taiwanese nationalists would like to draft a wholly new constitu-
tion that might be designed explicitly for Taiwan, rather than for all
of China, which the Republic of China regime previously sought to
represent and wished to reclaim. 2 ° Some Taiwanese and most
Mainlanders-those who fled China to Taiwan when the commu-
nists took over the mainland in 1949-oppose independence for
Taiwan and so oppose a constitution that is not designated for the
Republic of China.' 2 ' Some aim ultimately at reunification with the
mainland and therefore wish to retain an explicitly Chinese
constitution rather than adopt a Taiwanese constitution.'22 Many
others on Taiwan do not believe that either reunification with
China or independence for Taiwan is feasible and so also oppose
115. See generally Lin, supra note 84.
116. See generally Adi Andujo Soetjipto, Legal Reform and Challenges in Indonesia, in
INDONESIA IN TRANSITION (Chris Manning & Peter van Dierman eds., 2000).
117. REPUBLIC OF CHINA CONST. Arts. 25-28 (1947) (Taiwan).
118. See John Fuh-Sheng Hsieh, Whither the Kuomintang?, 168 CHINA Q. 930, 930 n.2
(2001).
119. See Yu-Shan Wu, The ROC's Semi-Presidentialism at Work: Unstable Compromise,
Not Cohabitation, ISSUES & STUD., Sept.-Oct. 2000, at 1.
120. See Emerson M. S. Niou, Understanding Taiwan Independence and Its Policy
Implications, 44 ASIAN SURV. 555, 555-56 (2004).
121. Id. at 556-58.
122. Id.
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WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW
radical changes in the status quo that would be symbolized by a
new constitution for Taiwan alone. 123 This middle group forms a
plurality on the island.12 4
Overlapping some of these divisions are divisions over the
structure of the existing constitution, attachment to which is
greater the closer on the spectrum one moves to the pro-unification
and Mainlander camps.' 25 The Pan-Blue camp, consisting of the
Kuomintang and its allies, resists fundamental constitutional
change, while the Pan-Green camp, the Democratic People's Party
and its allies, champions exactly that kind of change.126 The issue
threatens to polarize the island further by eliminating the moderate
middle, a course that would be quite dangerous.
Indonesia confronted an analogous problem after Suharto fell in
1998. The 1945 constitution had been drafted in haste and was
intended to be temporary.'27 It embodied a view of state power that
left little room for human rights or the rule of law.128 It seemed to
impart lawmaking power to the president and yet referred to a
supralegislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR),
as possessing "sovereignty."'29 On one reading, the president could
do as he wished, for the text provided that he "hold[s] the power of
government."' 3 ° For decades, Sukarno and Suharto both read it that
way.' 3 ' On another reading, the MPR was truly supreme; and, with
Suharto gone, the MPR began autonomously to assert its powers,including the power to choose and remove the president despite his
fixed term.'32
123. See Keith Bradsher, In Taiwan Ballot, Ties with Beijing Seem To Be a Winner, N.Y.
TIMES, Dec. 12, 2004, at 20.
124. See Niou, supra note 120, at 558-60.
125. See id. at 560-61. It is important to note, however, that the two camps are not
identical.
126. Id.
127. Andrew Ellis, The Indonesian Constitution Transition: Conservation or Fundamental
Change?, 6 SING. J. INTL & COMP. L. 116, 116 (2002).
128. See Nursyahbani Katya Sungkana, Exchanging Power or Changing Power? The
Problem of Creating Democratic Institutions, in INDONESIA IN TRANSITION, supra note 116,
at 259, 261-62.
129. UNDANG-UNDANG DASAR NEGARA REPUBLIK INDONESIA [Constitution] art. 1, § 2,
amended by amend. III.
130. Id. art. 4, § 1.
131. See Ellis, supra note 127, at 123-24.
132. See id. at 126-27.
[Vol. 49:12131244
CONCILIATORY INSTITUTIONS
For all its faults, the 1945 constitution had a considerable base
of support even after democratic reform began in 1998. Indonesian
society is divided into several aliran, meaning currents or
streams.'33 A major line of division concerns religion. Secular
nationalists associated with Megawati Sukarnoputri-who won
one-third of the vote and one-third of the legislative seats in 1999,
but had more support when secular nationalists in other parties
and in the army were added-were deeply attached to the old
constitution. 134 That constitution was associated with the anti-
colonial struggle; 135 it was a product of a time when secular
nationalists were ascendant; it had been reaffirmed by Megawati's
father, Sukarno, in 1959;136 and it embodied concepts of Pancasila,
the five fundamental truths nationalists wanted the state to live
by.'37 Like the ROC constitution in Taiwan, the 1945 Indonesian
Constitution was a bulwark against an emerging threat to theidentity of its proponents-in this case, the threat from Islam, of
which secular nationalists are as wary as Mainlanders and their
allies are of radical Taiwanese nationalism.13 Consequently, many
in the secular-nationalist camp wanted no change in the constitu-
tion or, in any case, as little as possible.
Indonesians in the MPR were afraid of splitting the society, so
they did not adhere to a deadline in changing the constitution.
Instead, Indonesian leaders awaited a consensus on every issue of
constitutional change and took more than four years to produce a
new constitution.139 Or, rather, a new-old constitution, because they
merely amended the 1945 constitution in a way that preserved the
Pancasila preamble and the overall form of the constitution but
changed its substance to: (1) create, for the first time, a directly
133. For Indonesia's religious cleavages, see Robert W. Hefner, Public Islam and the
Problem of Democratization, 62 SOc. RELIGION 491 (2001). See also CLIFFORD GEERTz, THE
RELIGION OF JAVA (1960). For ethnic divisions, see LEO SURYADINATA ET AL., INDONESIA'S
POPULATION: ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN A CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE (2003).
134. See Muhammad Qodari, Indonesia's Quest for Accountable Governance, J.
DEMOCRACY, Apr. 2005, at 73, 79.
135. Ellis, supra note 127, at 116-17.
136. Id. at 123.
137. See Soetjipto, supra note 116, at 271-72.
138. See Azyumardi Azra, The Islamic Factor in Post-Soeharto Indonesia, in INDONESIA
IN TRANSITION, supra note 116, at 309, 310-11.
139. See generally Ellis, supra note 127.
2008] 1245
WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW
elected president, a separation of powers, and checks and balances;(2) virtually eliminate the MPR as a supralegislature except for a
few emergency functions; (3) add a constitutional court as anearnest of the rule of law; and (4) produce de facto federalism in anominally unitary state. 14
1 In crafting the directly elected presi-dency, the Indonesians borrowed a version of the Nigerian systemof election by plurality plus territorial distribution in order to createan incentive for the president to have a pan-ethnic outlook.'
The politics of this process of constitutional renovation is muchtoo complex to rehearse here, but what is most interesting is thatthe process was led, in significant part, by some modernist Muslimswho did not share most of the apprehensions of secular nationalistsbut were eager to avoid dangerous polarization. 42 The result wasto eliminate dysfunctional institutions, all the while preservingconsensus and keeping secular nationalists attached to the processand to the emerging constitution. All of this occurred because theIndonesians proceeded by systematic and extensive amendment,rather than by scrapping the 1945 constitution, which richlydeserved scrapping. A side benefit of this gradual process was thatthe Indonesians had repeated opportunities to revisit previousdecisions in order to correct what they saw as errors beforeinterests crystallized around new institutions.
Can Taiwan accomplish a similar renovation by amendment thatwill avoid the polarization that a one-shot redrafting would entail?Taiwan's amendment process has very high hurdles. In addition toa supermajority to pass amendments, there is a referendum
provision with steep thresholds for passage.14 This is a majorbarrier to proceeding by amendment in the Indonesian way.
For states that have a type-three problem, the stakes are veryhigh. The constitution is likely to be bound up inextricably with core
140. For a variety of perspectives on the Indonesian process, see ARIS ANANTA ET AL.,EMERGINGDEMOCRACYIN INDONESIA (2005); INDONESIAINTRANSITION, supra note 116; Ellis,
supra note 127; Qodari, supra note 134.141. See UNDANG-UNDANGDASARNEGARAREPUBLIKINDONESA [Constitution] amend. III
(adding article 6A).
142. See Azra, supra note 138, at 313-14.
143. Referendum Act (enacted by Legislative Yuan, Nov. 27, 2003, promulgated byPresidential Order, Dec. 31, 2003), art. 30, translated in DIRECT DEMOCRACY PRACTICES INTAIWAN 79, 88 (Taiwan Found. for Democracy ed., 2005).
1246 [Vol. 49:1213
CONCILIATORY INSTITUTIONS
ethnic and other identity issues. Inapt resolution of constitutionalissues can shrink the moderate middle and increase the distance
between the polar extremes. The Indonesian process is worthy of
close study in such cases, because preventing polarization is always
a major, but sometimes neglected, goal of constitutional processes.
V. MATCHING PROCESSES WITH PROBLEMS
Just as there are some times that are more open to constitutional
innovation than others, there are times when choices of process are
more open. Yet there is no escaping the fact that process choices,
like the choice of institutions to be incorporated in a constitution,
are heavily colored by constraint. An example of these constraints
has already been reviewed. After civil or secessionist war, an end to
the fighting or the prevention of its resumption is likely to be
produced by bilateral negotiation that, by its nature, is conducive
to guarantees of a generally consociational sort."' Similarly, a
sitting authoritarian regime and an opposition that has shaken but
not displaced it generally engage in an exchange of commitments.
In such cases, constitutional planning, with full scrutiny of
available options, is unusual. The structure of each situation
provides the constraint that narrows the options.
It is generally after the violence has definitively ended or the
authoritarians have departed that constitutional planning can
proceed. If interim arrangements have been put in place, political
actors who benefit from them are unlikely to wish to start a wholly
new constitutional process. Interests crystallize quickly in such
settings. Of course, if the initial post-conflict settlement breaks
down, as many do, there will not be a chance to reach the stage ofconstitutional planning then either.
Even if the settlement does not break down, however, and there
is receptivity to creating new institutions, there is no equivalent of
a traffic police officer to direct particular problems to the process
most appropriate for them. It is possible to enumerate processes
that might prove best for dealing with an instance of one or another
type of problem, but the determinants of the choice of one or
144. See supra Part II.
20081 1247
1248 WILLAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 49:1213
another process are, at this stage, truly uncertain. The parties in
conflict may be exhorted to proceed in public, or to deploy expertise
in a highly deliberative process, or to proceed by gradual amend-
ment and consensus to prevent alienation and polarization, but
these are, in the end, just exhortations. The parties may proceed by
whatever method seems expedient and consistent with their
interests.
There is, therefore, the prior question of who sets the procedural
agenda and what can motivate an agenda-setting process that sorts
problems reliably. As of now, this issue of the metaprocess-the
process that leads to the process-has no convincing answers. This
is yet another reason why, since 1989, there has been much
constitution making but much less conflict reduction or prevention
of its recurrence.
Monday, November 2, 2015
14:00 – 15:00
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Discussion: The “historic baggage“ of constitutions
Preambles to the Constitutions of
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Croatia
- Germany
- South Africa
- the United States
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THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
REPUBLIC OF CROATIA
I HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
The millennial national identity of the Croatian nation and the continuity of its statehood,
confirmed by the course of its entire historical experience in various political forms and by the
perpetuation and growth of state-building ideas based on the historical right to full
sovereignty of the Croatian nation, manifested itself:
• in the formation of Croatian principalities in the 7th century;
• in the independent medieval state of Croatia founded in the 9th century;
• in the Kingdom of Croats established in the 10th century;
• in the preservation of the subjectivity of the Croatian state in the Croatian-Hungarian
personal union;
• in the autonomous and sovereign decision of the Croatian Parliament of 1527 to elect
a king from the Habsburg dynasty;
• in the autonomous and sovereign decision for the Croatian Parliament to sign the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1712;
• in the conclusions of the Croatian Parliament of 1848 regarding the restoration of the
integrity of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia under the power of the Vice-Roy (Ban) on
the basis of the historical state and natural right of the Croatian nation;
• in the Croatian-Hungarian Compromise of 1868 regulating the relations between the
Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia and the Kingdom of Hungary, on the
basis of the legal traditions of both states and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1712;
• in the decision of the Croatian Parliament of October 29, 1918, to dissolve state
relations between Croatia and Austria-Hungary, and the simultaneous affiliation of
independent Croatia, invoking its historical and natural right as a nation, with the State
of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, proclaimed in the former territory of the Habsburg
Empire;
• in the fact that the Croatian Parliament never sanctioned the decision passed by the
National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to unite with Serbia and
Montenegro in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (December 1, 1918),
subsequently proclaimed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (October 3, 1929);
• in the establishment of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939 by which Croatian state
identity was restored in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia;
• in laying the foundations of state sovereignty during World War Two, through
decisions of the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia (1943), to
oppose the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia (1941), and subsequently
in the Constitution of the People's Republic of Croatia (1947), and several subsequent
constitutions of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1963-1990).
At the historic turning-point marked by the rejection of the communist system and changes in
the international order in Europe, the Croatian nation reaffirmed, in the first democratic
elections (1990), by its freely expressed will, its millennial statehood and its resolution to
establish the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state.
Proceeding from the above presented historical facts and from the generally accepted
principles in the modern world and the inalienable, indivisible, nontransferable and
inexpendable right of the Croatian nation to self-determination and state sovereignty,
including the inviolable right to secession and association, as the basic preconditions for
peace and stability of the international order, the Republic of Croatia is hereby established as
the national state of the Croatian people and a state of members of other nations and
minorities who are its citizens: Serbs, Muslims, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians,
Hungarians, Jews and others, who are guaranteed equality with citizens of Croatian
nationality and the realization of ethnic rights in accordance with the democratic norms of the
United Nations and countries of free world.
Respecting the will of the Croatian nation and all citizens, resolutely expressed at free
elections, the Republic of Croatia is organized and shall develop as a sovereign and
democratic state in which the equality of citizens and human freedoms and rights are
guaranteed and ensured, and their economic and cultural progress and social welfare are
promoted.
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Tuesday, November 3, 2015
9:00 – 10:30
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Application of constitutions
- Vertical v. horizontal application
- Social and economic guarantees in constitutions
Shelley v. Kramer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948)
Lueth case, German Cstl. Ct., 7 BVerfGE 198 (1958)
Du Plessis v. De Klerk, Constitutional Court of South Africa, 8/95, May 15, 1996
Gov’t of the Republic of South Africa v. Grootboom, 2000 (11)
BCLR 1169 (CC), Summary
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489
U.S. 189 (1989), Syllabus
Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, III., 3. Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights
Indian Constitution, Part IV, Directive Principles of State Policy
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948)
Summary
Petitioner: J.D. Shelley
Respondent: Louis Kraemer
Petitioner's Claim: That contracts preventing African Americans from purchasing homes
violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner: George L. Vaughn and Herman Willer
Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Gerald L. Seegers
Justices for the Court: Hugo Lafayette Black, Harold Burton, William O. Douglas, Felix
Frankfurter, Frank Murphy, Frederick Moore Vinson
Justices Dissenting: None (Robert H. Jackson, Stanley Forman Reed, and Wiley Blount
Rutledge did not participate)
Date of Decision: May 3, 1948
Decision: The Supreme Court said the Fourteenth Amendment prevents courts from enforcing
race discrimination in real estate contracts.
Significance: Shelley ended a powerful form of race discrimination in housing.
When the American Civil War ended in 1865, the United States ended slavery with the
Thirteenth Amendment. Three years later in 1868, it adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. The
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment says a state may not "deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The main purpose of the Equal
Protection Clause was to prevent states from discriminating against African Americans.
The Fourteenth Amendment only applies to the states. It does not prevent race discrimination
by individual people. After 1868, racial prejudice led many people to continue race
discrimination on their own.
Whites Only
In 1911 there was a neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where thirty-nine people owned
fifty-seven parcels of land. In February of that year, thirty of the owners signed an agreement
not to rent or sell their property to African Americans or Asian Americans. Such an
agreement is called a restrictive covenant. The owners who signed the restrictive covenant
had forty-seven of the fifty-seven parcels in the neighborhood.
In August 1945, J.D. Shelley and his wife, who were African Americans, bought a parcel of
land in the neighborhood from someone named Fitzgerald. The Shelleys were unaware of the
restrictive covenant. Louis Kraemer and his wife, who owned another parcel in the
neighborhood, sued the Shelleys in the Circuit Court of St. Louis. The Kraemers asked the
court to take the Shelleys' land away and give it back to Fitzgerald.
The court ruled in favor of the Shelleys because the restrictive covenant did not have the
proper signatures. On appeal, however, the Supreme Court of Missouri reversed and ruled in
favor of the Kraemers. The court said the restrictive covenant was legal and ordered the
Shelleys to leave their land. Determined to stay, the Shelleys took the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Race Discrimination Unenforceable
With a 6â0 decision, the Supreme Court reversed again and ruled in favor of the Shelleys.
Chief Justice Frederick Moore Vinson wrote the opinion for the Court. Chief Justice Vinson
said the right to own property is one of the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
That means a state would not be allowed to create a restrictive covenant that discriminated
against people because of their race.
Missouri, of course, did not create the restrictive covenant that applied to the Shelleys' land.
Private owners created it in 1911. That meant the restrictive covenant itself did not violate the
Fourteenth Amendment. The only way to enforce the covenant, however, was to go to court,
as the Kraemers had done.
Chief Justice Vinson said the Fourteenth Amendment made it illegal for state courts to
enforce restrictive covenants that discriminate against people because of their race. Vinson
said, "freedom from discrimination by the States in the enjoyment of property rights was
among the basic objectives sought ⦠by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. ⦠The
Fourteenth Amendment declares that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal
before the laws of the States."
In the end, then, the Kraemers were not allowed to take the Shelleys' land away. The decision
was an early victory for African Americans, who were struggling to protect their civil rights.
Six years later, the Court would order public schools to stop segregation, the practice of
separating blacks and whites in different schools. Such decisions gave Americans the chance
to live and go to school together in the melting pot of the United States.
Lüth case (Summary), BVerfGE 7, 198; 1 BvR 400/51 of January 15, 1958
Facts:
In 1950, on the occasion of the opening of the German film Week, one of the plaintiffs, Lüth,
published the following statement in his capacity as President of the Press Club of Hamburg:
"After German filmmaking lost its moral reputation during the time of the Third Reich,
certainly one man is least capable of regaining/restoring that reputation: the writer and
director of the film 'Jud Süß' [i.e. Veit Harlan]! May we be spared further unforeseeable
damage under the eyes of the whole world which would certainly occur if we would
make him the main representative of the German film industry. His recent acquittal in a
Hamburg state court was only a formal verdict. The court's reasoning in fact was a
moral condemnation. We now demand [that] the distribution companies and theatre
owners [show] personal and moral character."
Two film production companies, both of whom were involved with Harlan, initiated legal action in
order to prohibit Lüth:
1) from discouraging German film distribution companies and theatre owners to show Harlan's
latest film, "Unsterbliche Geliebte"; and
2) from discouraging the German public to go and see the film.
Their argumentation relied on German defamation law.
A State Court granted the injunctions requested; on appeal, the injunctions were upheld. Lüth then
filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court, claiming a violation of his right to freedom
of expression.
Held:
The Court ruled in favour of Lüth.
The Court considered two questions to be of fundamental importance: first, whether fundamental
rights applied between individuals as well as between individuals and the State; and second, the
relationship between the right to freedom of expression and the rights of others.
As to the first question, the Court held:
There is no doubt that fundamental rights primarily intend to secure individual freedom
against public action; they are defensive rights against the state ... But it is also true
that the Constitution ... has developed an order of objective moral and legal principles
and that the effectiveness of fundamental rights finds its distinct expression therein (p.
204, references omitted)
Constitutional rights must therefore be taken into account in decisions that are otherwise essentially
based in civil law or other areas of law. This led the Court to develop its so-called doctrine of
indirect effect of fundamental rights which holds that almost every court decision, be it in the field
of civil, employment or commercial law, is subject to the constitutional rights doctrine as developed
by the Federal Constitutional Court.
In deciding the second question, the Court pointed out, first, the importance of the right to freedom
of expression:
The fundamental right to freedom of expression is as a direct expression of human
personality one of the noblest human rights in society (un des droits les plus précieux de
l'homme according to Article 11 of the Declaration of human and civil rights of 1789).
To a free and democratic state, it is essential because it facilitates continuous
intellectual controversy, the "clash of opinions" which is a free democratic state's
primary element. It is, in a way, the very basis of freedom, 'the matrix, the indispensable
condition of nearly every other form of freedom' (Cardozo). (p. 208, references omitted)
Freedom of expression could therefore be restricted only in certain circumstances:
General laws aiming at limiting freedom of expression must [be] interpreted in such a
way that the essential normative content of freedom of expression which leads to a
presumption for the freedom of speech in any field of society and particularly in public
life is secured. The reciprocal relationship between the fundamental right [to freedom of
expression] and the 'general law' limiting it therefore is not a unilateral limitation of the
effectiveness of freedom of expression but it is rather a reciprocal action and effect in
the sense that the 'general laws' may put limitations to the fundamental right provision
but must themselves be interpreted in the light of the value-setting importance of the
fundamental right provision in the free and democratic state. (p. 208, references
omitted)
Applying these general legal principles, the Court held that:
The statements made by the complainant must be interpreted in the light of his general
political and cultural-political intentions ... The film companies, having decided to
employ Harlan again, may have acted correctly in formal terms. Yet, if they have not
paid attention to the moral dimension of the case doing so, this may not have the
consequence that the action taken by the complainant may be called 'immoral' [i.e. in
accordance with § 826 of the Civil Code] and his fundamental right to freedom of
expression be limited. This would significantly narrow the importance of this
fundamental right provision to the free democracy which it gains by the fact that it
preserves public discourse on topics of common interest and substantive content. As far
as the development of public opinion concerning objectives important to the common
good is concerned, private and particularly economic interests have to stand back
principally. (p. 212, references omitted)
To underline its findings, the Court referred to a public discussion in German parliament held on 29
February 1952, indicating that Lüth's opinion reflected a common public opinion and therefore
could not be considered "immoral".
The Court quashed the injunctions and referred the case back to the lower court for a new decision,
ordering it to take into account the principles enunciated.
Du Plessis, D., and others v. De Klerk, G.J.F. and Wonder Air (Pty) Ltd
Cconstitutional Court of South Africa, May 15, 1996, CCT 8/95
(Excerpt)
The case arose out of a defamation action instituted before the South African Constitution came
into force by Mr De Klerk and a company (Wonder Air (Pty) Ltd) controlled by him, after they had
been identified in the Pretoria News as being implicated in the unlawful supply of arms by UNITA.
After the Constitution came into force, the defendant sought to raise the defence that the alleged
defamation was not unlawful because it was protected by the right to freedom of speech and
expression in terms of s 15 of the Constitution.
The Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court referred two issues to the Constitutional
Court: (1) [ommitted] and (2) whether Chapter 3 [Bill of Rights] of the South African Constitution
was applicable to legal relationships between private parties.
Excerpt fom the Judgement of the Court, footnotes ommitted:
….
[31] The “horizontality” issue has arisen in other countries with entrenched Bills of Rights and
the parties have supplied us with a wealth of comparative material both judicial and extra-judicial,
for which we are grateful.
[32] In the court below the learned judge, having endorsed the purposive approach to
constitutional interpretation, analysed the purpose of the Chapter on Fundamental Rights as follows
“When interpreting the Constitution and more particularly the Bill of Rights it has
to be done against the backdrop of our chequered and repressive history in the
human rights field. The State by legislative and administrative means curtailed the
common law human rights of most of its citizens in many fields while the Courts
looked on powerless. Parliament and the executive reigned supreme.
It is this malpractice which the Bill of Rights seeks to combat. It does so by laying
down the ground rules for State action which may interfere with the lives of its
citizens. There is now a threshold which the State may not cross. The Courts guard
the door.”
Having considered the interpretation of entrenched Bills of Rights in the Constitutions of other
countries, he concluded that in general, fundamental rights are protected against state action only.
“Horizontal protection,” he said,
“sometimes occurs to a limited extent but when it is intended over the broad field of
human rights, it is expressly so stated”
Horizontal application of Chapter 3 would in his view create an undesirable uncertainty in private
legal relationships which could not have been intended by the framers of our Constitution. After an
analysis of certain provisions of the Constitution he held that the fundamental rights set out in
Chapter 3 were of vertical application only, and that the contrary conclusion of Van Schalkwyk J in
Mandela v Falati was clearly wrong. ….
[33] There can be no doubt that the resolution of the issue must ultimately depend on an analysis
of the specific provisions of the Constitution. It is nonetheless illuminating to examine the solutions
arrived at by the courts of other countries. The Court was referred to judgments of the courts of the
United States, Canada, Germany and Ireland. I would not presume to attempt a detailed
description, or even a summary, of the relevant law of those countries, but in each case some broad
features are apparent to the outside observer. A comparative examination shows at once that there is
no universal answer to the problem of vertical or horizontal application of a Bill of Rights. Further,
it shows that the simple vertical/horizontal dichotomy can be misleading. Thus under the
Constitution of the United States the First to Tenth Amendments (the “Bill of Rights”) and the
Fourteenth Amendment, insofar as they confer rights on individuals, would at first sight appear to
be vertical, in the sense of being directed only against state power. Yet the courts of that country
have in some cases at least reached what is effectively a horizontal application of constitutional
rights by holding that the judicial power is a state power against which constitutional protections
may invoked.
[34] So, in Shelley v. Kraemer an African-American couple had bought property which was
subject to a restrictive covenant under which the seller had undertaken to sell only to whites.
Owners of restricted property in the same neighbourhood sued to prevent the couple from taking
possession of the property. The United States Supreme Court reiterated earlier holdings that the
Fourteenth Amendment did not reach private conduct, however discriminatory, but held that official
actions by state courts and judicial officials were subject to the Fourteenth Amendment, with the
result that the discriminatory covenant could not be enforced by the courts. Vinson CJ said -
“... state action in violation of the Amendment’s provisions is equally repugnant to
the constitutional commands whether directed by state statute or taken by a judicial
official in the absence of statute.”
It was on this principle that the United States Supreme Court was able to hold in New York Times
Co. v. Sullivan, an action between private litigants, that the law of defamation of the State of
Alabama was an unconstitutional impairment of the right of freedom of speech. A complex case
law suggests that the rule in Shelley v. Kraemer, supra n47, is not invariably available in private law
disputes. The reasoning behind the decision has also been cogently criticised. It may nonetheless
be accepted that by identifying some state involvement in private transactions (sometimes with
great ingenuity) United States’ courts have found a way of enforcing fundamental constitutional
rights in disputes between private litigants.
[35] Irish cases indicate that in some instances at least, constitutional rights have been directly
applied in private disputes so as to override a rule of common law. An example is C.M. v T.M. in
which Barr J held that the common law doctrine that a wife’s domicile was dependent on that of
her husband was inconsistent with the principles of equality before the law and equality between
husband and wife embodied in Articles 40 and 41 of the Irish Constitution.
[36] Very different models of constitutional adjudication are to be found elsewhere. There is a
valuable comparative overview of the application of constitutional rights in the private law of a
number of countries in Constitutional Human Rights and Private Law, a work by Justice A. Barak,
of the Supreme Court of Israel, from which it appears that there are several jurisdictions which
reject the horizontal application, or at least the direct horizontal application of constitutional rights.
I propose to confine my further consideration of the comparative material to the Canadian and
German position, particularly as argument on these two systems was specifically addressed to us.
[37] The leading Canadian case is Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, Local 580 et al.
v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd. a judgment of the Supreme Court (to which I shall refer hereafter as
Dolphin Delivery). That case arose from a labour dispute, in which the defendant trade union
threatened to picket the plaintiff’s premises unless it ceased to do business with another company
with which the union was in dispute. A trial judge found that the defendant’s conduct constituted
the tort of inducing a breach of contract and granted an injunction restraining the threatened
picketing. The union appealed on the ground that the injunction infringed its Charter right of
freedom of expression. In dismissing the appeal the court held (among other grounds) that while
the Charter applied to common law as well as statute law, it did not apply in litigation between
private parties in the absence of any reliance on legislation or governmental action. McIntyre J,
who gave the leading judgment, based his judgment on the terms of section 32 of the Charter which
expressly provide that the Charter applies to “the Parliament and government of Canada” and to
“the legislature and government of each province.” By “government,” he held, was meant the
executive and administrative branch of government. An order of court was not to be equated with
governmental action.
[38] The essence of the court’s conclusion is to be found in the following passage from the
judgment of McIntyre J -
“It is my view that s. 32 of the Charter specifies the actors to whom the Charter will
apply. They are the legislative, executive and administrative branches of
government. It will apply to those branches of government whether or not their
action is invoked in public or private litigation. It would seem that legislation is the
only way in which a legislature may infringe a guaranteed right or freedom. Action
by the executive or administrative branches of government will generally depend
upon legislation, that is, statutory authority. Such action may also depend, however,
on the common law, as in the case of the prerogative. To the extent that it relies on
statutory authority which constitutes or results in an infringement of a guaranteed
right or freedom, the Charter will apply and it will be unconstitutional. The action
will also be unconstitutional to the extent that it relies for authority or justification
on a rule of the common law which constitutes or creates an infringement of a
Charter right or freedom. In this way the Charter will apply to the common law,
whether in public or private litigation. It will apply to the common law, however,
only in so far as the common law is the basis of some governmental action which, it
is alleged, infringes a guaranteed right or freedom.”
What follows from this is - (a) if a party to private litigation founds a claim or defence on some
piece of legislation (whether an act of Parliament, a by-law or regulation) or on some executive act,
(such as the issue of a licence) its constitutionality under the Charter is an issue which may properly
be raised; (b) in litigation between private parties no inconsistency between the common law and
the Charter may be relied on; but (c) the Charter applies to the common law in a dispute between
government and a private litigant - for example where the government relies on a common law
prerogative. (In a subsequent case the Canadian Supreme Court has held that the Charter applies to
the state even in respect of activities which are contractual or commercial in nature). The
Defendants in the present case point to differences in wording between the Charter and our own
Constitution, and deny that Dolphin Delivery provides any assistance in interpreting the latter. They
have also referred us to the academic criticisms of Dolphin Delivery noted by Friedman JP in
Baloro and Others v University of Bophuthatswana and Others. I shall return to Dolphin Delivery
later in this judgment.
[39] The German jurisprudence on this subject is not by any means easy to summarise, especially
for one who does not read German. There are, however useful, accounts of the German approach in
some of the South African literature, as also in the work of Justice Barak, which I have mentioned
above. I have also had the benefit of reading an extensive article entitled “Free Speech and Private
Law in German Constitutional Theory” by Professor Peter E. Quint, to which I am much indebted.
[40] The German model may be described as the indirect application model. The rights of
individuals entrenched in the Basic Law are directly available as protection against state (including
legislative) action, but do not directly apply to private law disputes. The values embodied in the
Basic Law do, however, permeate the rules of private law which regulate legal relations between
individuals. A constitutional right may override a rule of public law, but it is said to “influence”
rather than to override the rules of private law. Private law is therefore to be developed and
interpreted in the light of any applicable constitutional norm, and continues to govern disputes
between private litigants. Private law rules are not completely superseded. This approach was
authoritatively laid down by the German Constitutional Court in the leading case of Lueth, a case
concerning the right of free expression under Article 5 of the Basic Law. Later cases, such as the
Mephisto case in 1971, and the Deutschland-Magazin case in 1976, established that it was for the
ordinary courts to apply the constitutional norms to private law. This was likely to involve a
balancing of constitutionally protected interests against one another (for example the right of free
expression against the right of human dignity under Article 1) or against established private law
rights such as confidentiality or privacy. The facts of the particular case are also to be taken into
account in the balancing process. The German Constitutional Court will exercise, if necessary, a
power of review, but it will do so with restraint - usually only when it is satisfied that the ordinary
courts have proceeded on a seriously wrong interpretation of the basic constitutional rights under
Basic Law. Quint makes two comments of particular interest. One is that the deference of the
Constitutional Court to the ordinary courts on questions of private law stems from the fact that,
unlike the United States Supreme Court, its basic function is to decide constitutional questions only.
This consideration may prove in due course to have some relevance to the practical application of
section 35(3) of our own Constitution. The second is that in some cases the impact of the German
Basic Law upon private law under the “indirect” doctrine may be stronger than that of the United
States Constitution on American common law under the “state action” doctrine, precisely because
the ordinary German courts are entitled and obliged to take the Basic Law into account without
searching for an element of state action.
[41] The doctrine of the application of the norms of the Basic Law in the field of private law
(“Drittwirkung”) is subtle and is the subject of considerable debate in Germany itself. The
analyses of Justice Barak and Professor Quint might not command universal acceptance, still less
my own brief interpretation of the doctrine. It is not, however, my purpose to provide a definitive
statement of German law, even if I were competent to do so. The purpose of this perhaps overlong
account of constitutional adjudication elsewhere is to see what guidance it might provide in the
interpretation of the South African Constitution. In my opinion there is at least one positive lesson
to be learnt from the Canadian and German approaches to the problem before us. Both Canada and
Germany have developed a strong culture of individual human rights, which finds expression in the
decisions of their courts. Yet, after long debate, both judicial and academic, in those countries, the
highest courts have rejected the doctrine of direct horizontal application of their Bills of Rights. On
this issue, as on the retrospectivity issue, the example of these countries seriously undermines the
Defendants’ contention that anything other that a direct horizontal application of Chapter 3 must
result in absurdity and injustice.
[42] As I have already indicated the issue of horizontal or vertical application of Chapter 3 has
been hotly debated in the South African legal literature. Arguments of substance have been
deployed on both sides of the debate. I have read much of this literature, I hope with advantage. It
is not out of any disrespect to the authors that I refrain from listing all those to be found on each
side of the controversy, or from analysing their respective arguments. I propose instead to turn
without further delay to consider what I take to be the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
[43] In relation to the application of Chapter 3 of the Constitution there are, as Professor Cockrell
has explained, two inter-related but nonetheless different questions to be considered. The first is to
what law the Chapter applies - does it apply to the common law, or only to statute law? The second
question is what persons are bound by the Chapter - do the rights give protection only against
governmental action or can they also be invoked against private individuals? There are, of course,
subsidiary questions, such as what bodies can be considered to be organs of government, and
whether executive action in the private law sphere is “governmental.”
[44] The plain answer to the first question emerges from section 7(2) of the Constitution, which
states -
“This Chapter shall apply to all law in force and all administrative decisions taken
and acts performed during the period of operation of this Constitution.”
….
[45] The second question too seems to have a plain answer. Section 7(1) states -
“This Chapter shall bind all legislative and executive organs of state at all levels of
government.”
Entrenched Bills of Rights are ordinarily intended to protect the subject against legislative and
executive action, and the emphatic statement in section 7(1) must mean that Chapter 3 is intended to
be binding only on the legislative and executive organs of state. ….
….
[49] To recapitulate, by reason of the sections to which I have referred -
a) Constitutional rights under Chapter 3 may be invoked against
an organ of government but not by one private litigant against
another.
b) In private litigation any litigant may nonetheless contend that
a statute (or executive act) relied on by the other party is
invalid as being inconsistent with the limitations placed on
legislature and executive under Chapter 3.
c) As Chapter 3 applies to common law, governmental acts or
omissions in reliance on the common law may be attacked by
a private litigant as being inconsistent with Chapter 3 in any
dispute with an organ of government.
….
[57] The limitation of the jurisdiction of this Court to constitutional matters, and the preservation
of the role of the Appellate Division as the final court of appeal in other matters also appear to me to
lead inexorably to the conclusion that Chapter 3 is not intended to be applied directly to common
law issues between private litigants. Section 101(5) of the Constitution states-
“The Appellate Division shall have no jurisdiction to adjudicate any matter within
the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court”.
Numerous provisions of Chapter 3 could and would be invoked in private litigation if direct
horizontal application of the Chapter were permitted. ….
….
[60] Fortunately, the Constitution allows for the development of the common law and customary
law by the Supreme Court in accordance with the objects of Chapter 3. This is provided for in
section 35(3) -
“In the interpretation of any law and the application and development of the
common law and customary law, a court shall have due regard to the spirit, purport
and objects of this Chapter.”
I have no doubt that this sub-section introduces the indirect application of the fundamental rights
provisions to private law. I draw attention to the words “have due regard to” in section 35(3). That
choice of language is significant. The lawgiver did not say that courts should invalidate rules of
common law inconsistent with Chapter 3 or declare them unconstitutional. The fact that courts are
to do no more than have regard to the spirit, purport and objects of the Chapter indicates that the
requisite development of the common law and customary law is not to be pursued through the
exercise of the powers of this Court under section 98 of the Constitution. The presence of this sub-
section ensures that the values embodied in Chapter 3 will permeate the common law in all its
aspects, including private litigation. ….
Government of the Republic of South
Africa. & Ors v Grootboom & Ors 2000 (11)
BCLR 1169. (CC)
Country:
South Africa/Sudáfrica
Thematic Focus:
Children's Rights
Forum and Date of Decision:
Constitutional Court of South Africa
2012-06-21
Nature of the Case:
Challenge to failure of governments to provide adequate housing under s.26 (right to adequate
housing) and s.28 (Children's right to shelter) of the South African Constitution; Failure of
housing programme to address needs of those in desperate situations; Reasonable measures
and allocation of resources; Whether there is a right to minimum shelter; Minimum core
content of right to housing; Extent of judicial deference to government policy choice;
Appropriate remedy.
Summary:
A community of squatters, evicted from an informal settlement in Wallacedene had set up
minimal shelters of plastic and other materials at a sports centre adjacent to Wallacedene
community centre. They lacked basic sanitation or electricity. The group brought an action
under sections 26(the right of access to adequate housing) and 28 (children's right to basic
shelter) of the South African Constitution for action by various levels of government. The
High Court, relying on the principles of judicial deference outlined by the Constitutional
Court in the Soobramoney case, found that the respondents had taken “reasonable measures
within available resources to achieve the progressive realisation of the right to have access to
adequate housing” – as required by s. 26(2) of the Constitution. However, because the right of
children to shelter in article 28 was not subject to available resources, the High Court held that
the applicants were entitled to be provided with basic shelter. On appeal to the Constitutional
Court the Court found no violation of s. 28 but found instead a violation of the right to
adequate housing in s.26. The Court held that article 26 obliges the state to devise and
implement a coherent, co-ordinated housing programme and that in failing to provide for
those in most desperate need the government had failed to take reasonable measures to
progressively realize the right to housing. The Court ordered that the various governments
“devise, fund, implement and supervise measures to provide relief to those in desperate need.”
The South African Human Rights Commission agreed to monitor and if necessary report on
the governments' implementation of this order.
Enforcement of the Decision and Outcomes:
The decision had a major impact on housing policy in South Africa. Most municipalities put
in place a "Grootboom allocation" in their budgets to address the needs of those in desperate
need. The applicants were provided with basic amenities as a result of a settlement reached
prior to the hearing of the case by the Constitutional Court, but the results of the decision for
the community have been disappointing. Further legal action was taken to enforce the remedy
against the local government.
Significance of the Case:
This is probably the most cited ESC rights case, laying the foundation for subsequent
successful ESC rights claims in South Africa and elsewhere. The Court lays the foundation
for the justiciability of the obligation to progressively realize ESC rights, which the Court will
review on the basis of the “reasonableness” test, and exercise deference, where appropriate,
at the stage of remedy. The ruling places the adjudication of ESC rights within a familiar
framework to courts in all jurisdictions and modifies the rationality review standard adopted
in the earlier Soobramoney case.
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Wednesday, November 4, 2015
9:00 – 10:30
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Judicial review
- Bases for judicial review
- Scope of judicial review
- Standards of judicial review
- Limits to judicial adjudication by constitutional courts
- The “counter-majoritarian difficulty”
Bases:
- U.S.: Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803)
- Germany: Art. 93 German Cst.
- South Africa: Art 38 SA Cst.
Scope:
- Campbell v. Clinton, 203 F.3d 19, 340 (2000)
- International Military Operations (Germany participation) case, German Cstl.
Ct. (1994)
Standards:
- United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938)
- Kalkar Case I, German Cstl. Ct., 49 BVerfGE 89 (1978)
The “counter-rmajoritarian difficulty”:
- Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, 2nd ed. 1986, 14-23
(optional)
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz, GG)
Article 93 [Federal Constitutional Court: jurisdiction]
(1) The Federal Constitutional Court shall rule:
1. on the interpretation of this Basic Law in the event of disputes concerning the extent of the
rights and duties of a supreme federal body or of other parties vested with rights of their own
by this Basic Law or by the rules of procedure of a supreme federal body;
2. in the event of disagreements or doubts respecting the formal or substantive compatibility
of federal law or Land law with this Basic Law, or the compatibility of Land law with other
federal law, on application of the Federal Government, of a Land government, or of one third
of the Members of the Bundestag;
2a. in the event of disagreements whether a law meets the requirements of paragraph (2) of
Article 72, on application of the Bundesrat or of the government or legislature of a Land;
3. in the event of disagreements respecting the rights and duties of the Federation and the
Länder, especially in the execution of federal law by the Länder and in the exercise of federal
oversight;
4. on other disputes involving public law between the Federation and the Länder, between
different Länder, or within a Land, unless there is recourse to another court;
4a. on constitutional complaints, which may be filed by any person alleging that one of his
basic rights or one of his rights under paragraph (4) of Article 20 or under Article 33, 38, 101,
103, or 104 has been infringed by public authority;
4b. on constitutional complaints filed by municipalities or associations of municipalities on
the ground that their right to self-government under Article 28 has been infringed by a law; in
the case of infringement by a Land law, however, only if the law cannot be challenged in the
constitutional court of the Land;
5. in the other instances provided for in this Basic Law.
(2) The Federal Constitutional Court shall also rule on such other matters as may be assigned
to it by a federal law.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996
38. Enforcement of rights
Anyone listed in this section has the right to approach a competent court, alleging that a right
in the Bill of Rights has been infringed or threatened, and the court may grant appropriate
relief, including a declaration of rights. The persons who may approach a court are -
a. anyone acting in their own interest;
b. anyone acting on behalf of another person who cannot act in their own name;
c. anyone acting as a member of, or in the interest of, a group or class of persons;
d. anyone acting in the public interest; and
e. an association acting in the interest of its members.
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.
Separate concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.
Separate opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.
Separate concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.
SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge:
A number of congressmen, led by Tom Campbell of California, filed suit claiming that the
President violated the War Powers Resolution and the War Powers Clause of the Constitution
by directing U.S. forces' participation in the recent NATO campaign in Yugoslavia. The
district court dismissed for lack of standing. We agree with the district court and therefore
affirm.
I. On March 24, 1999, President Clinton announced the commencement of NATO air and cruise
missile attacks on Yugoslav targets. Two days later he submitted to Congress a report,
"consistent with the War Powers Resolution," detailing the circumstances necessitating the
use of armed forces, the deployment's scope and expected duration, and asserting that he had
"taken these actions pursuant to [his] authority . . . as Commander in Chief and Chief
Executive." On April 28, Congress voted on four resolutions related to the Yugoslav conflict:
It voted down a declaration of war 427 to 2 and an "authorization" of the air strikes 213 to
213, but it also voted against requiring the President to immediately end U.S. participation in
the NATO operation and voted to fund that involvement. The conflict between NATO and
Yugoslavia continued for 79 days, ending on June 10 with Yugoslavia's agreement to
withdraw its forces from Kosovo and allow deployment of a NATO-led peacekeeping force.1
Throughout this period Pentagon, State Department, and NATO spokesmen informed the
public on a frequent basis of developments in the fighting.
Appellants, 31 congressmen opposed to U.S. involvement in the Kosovo intervention, filed
suit prior to termination of that conflict seeking a declaratory judgment that the President's use
of American forces against Yugoslavia was unlawful under both the War Powers Clause of
the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution ("the WPR"). See 50 U.S.C. § 1541 et seq.
The WPR requires the President to submit a report within 48 hours "in any case in which
United States Armed Forces are introduced . . . into hostilities or into situations where
imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances," and to
"terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which a report was
submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress . . . has declared war or has
enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces" within 60 days.
Appellants claim that the President did submit a report sufficient to trigger the WPR on March
26, or in any event was required to submit a report by that date, but nonetheless failed to end
U.S. involvement in the hostilities after 60 days. The district court granted the President's
motion to dismiss, see Campbell v. Clinton,52 F.Supp.2d 34 (D.D.C.1999), and this appeal
followed.
II. The government does not respond to appellants' claim on the merits. Instead the government
challenges the jurisdiction of the federal courts to adjudicate this claim on three separate
grounds: the case is moot; appellants lack standing, as the district court concluded; and the
case is nonjusticiable. Since we agree with the district court that the congressmen lack
standing it is not necessary to decide whether there are other jurisdictional defects. …
U. S. v. Carolene Products Co., Case Brief
Summary of U. S. v. Carolene Products Co. S. Ct. 1938
Regulation of Business Designed to Protect Public Health/Safety – Rational Basis:
Relevant Facts: The Carolene Products Company was indicted for shipping a compound of
condensed skimmed milk and coconut oil made in imitation or semblance of condensed milk
or cream.
Legal Issue(s): Whether the ‘Filled Milk Act’ of Congress which prohibits the shipment of
skimmed milk compounded with any fat or oil other than milk fat, so as to resemble milk or
cream, violates the 5th
or 14th
Amendments?
Court’s Holding: The prohibition of shipment of appellee’s product does not violate the
5th
or 14th.
Procedure: The case was brought here on appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act. Judgment
sustaining a demurrer to the indictment, and the United States appeals. Reversed.
Law or Rule(s): A statute enacted where the facts would show or tend to show that a statute
deprives life, liberty, or property is a “denial of due process,” unless rationally based on to
the health and welfare of the public evidenced by the legislators experience and knowledge.-
5th
14th
.
Court Rationale: The equal protection clause of the Constitution does not compel state
Legislatures to prohibit all like evils or none, but permits the Legislatures to hit at an abuse
which they have found, even though they fail to strike at another. -14th
In twenty years
evidence has steadily accumulated of the danger to the public health from the general
consumption of foods which have been stripped of elements essential to the maintenance of
health. The regulation of filled milk, in the absence of proof discrimination or arbitrary
application to a member of a class, is reserved for Congress to legislate, so long as the statute
remains consistent with the Const.
Plaintiff’s Argument: (Appellant) Foods that have been stripped of elements essential to the
maintenance of health, and pose a danger to the public health should be regulated.
Defendant’s Argument: (Appellee) The statute denies to it equal protection of the laws, and
in violation of the 5ht Amendment, deprives it of its property without due process of law,
particularly in that the statute purports to make binding and conclusive upon appellee the
legislative declaration that appellee’s product ‘is an adulterated article of food, injurious to the
public health, and its sale constitutes a fraud on the public.’
[Epithets – titles or designations]
[Opprobrious – heinous or bad]
TEST – The existence of facts supporting legislative judgment is presumed. Regulatory
legislation affecting ordinary commercial transactions is not deemed unconstitutional unless
the facts disclose the character of the statute is not based upon a rational basis. Experience
and knowledge of legislators.
Footnote 4 to U.S. v. Carolene Products Co.:
There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when
legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as
those of the first ten amendments ….
It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes
which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation is to be
subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the Fourteenth
Amendment than are most other types of legislation. …
Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed
at particular religious …or national …or racial minorities, … whether prejudice against
discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the
operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and
which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
14:00 – 15:00
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Continuation of the morning session
Thursday, November 5, 2015
9:00 – 10:30
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Religious freedom
- School prayers
- Freedom of establishment
- Crosses in classrooms
- Christian religious symbols or pieces of interior decoration?
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
School Prayer case, German Cstl. Ct., 52 BVerfGE 223 (1979)
W. Cole Durham, General Assessment of the Basic Law, An American View, p. 47-
49
Lautsi and others v. Italy, European Court of Human Rights, judgment of March 18,
2011
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Friday, November 6, 2015
9:00 – 10:30
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Abortion
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973
Abortion case I, German Cstl. Ct., 39 BVerfGE 1 (1975)
Patrick Glenn, The Constitutional validity of Abortion Legislation: A Comparative
Note, 21 McGill L. J. 673 (1975)
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
(Summary)
Jane Roe was an unmarried and pregnant Texas resident in 1970. Texas law made it a felony to
abort a fetus unless “on medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Roe filed
suit against Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, contesting the statue on the grounds that it
violated the guarantee of personal liberty and the right to privacy implicitly guaranteed in the First,
Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. In deciding for Roe, the Supreme Court
invalidated any state laws that prohibited first trimester abortions.
Key excerpts from the majority opinion:
MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court. Chief Justice Burger and Justices
Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall and Powell joined the opinion.
…We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion
controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and
seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One's philosophy, one's experiences, one's
exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life
and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all
likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion.
…The principal thrust of appellant's attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a
right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant
would discover this right in the concept of personal "liberty" embodied in the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be
protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras.
…The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. …[T]he Court has recognized
that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under
the Constitution. … This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's
concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District
Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to
encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the
State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.
Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved.
Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future.
Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care.
There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the
problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for
it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed
motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician
necessarily will consider in consultation.
On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is
absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and
for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that Texas
either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to
support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The Court's
decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas
Abortion case I, German Constitutional Court,
39 BVerfGE 1 (1975)
A contrast to Roe v. Wade
The German Supreme Court tackled the issue of abortion two years after
Roe v. Wade, affirming that the unborn have a right to life guaranteed by the
constitution, that abortion is "an act of killing", and that the unborn child
deserves legal protection throughout its development. The decision is an
instructive contrast to Roe because it cuts across the usual categories, and
cannot be described as "liberal" or "conservative".
Notably, it said that the state has a duty to use "social, political, and welfare
means" to foster developing human life, and that these are preferable to
penal measures (though the latter are not ruled out). The decision came
several years after decisions in the U.S. and Britain legalized abortion. It
struck down a law that legalized some abortions in the first three months.
The decision considered the full range of arguments for abortion, both early
(legalization had been a topic of debate in Germany since the turn of the
century) and recent (used in other countries such as the United States and
Britain that legalized abortion several years before). In particular, it
specifically rejected the main points of reasoning in Roe v. Wade as well as
its "term solution" as inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of the
right to life.
The part of the German constitution referred to in the decision, Article 1,
Paragraph 1, says that "Everyone has the right to life", but does not
specifically mention the unborn.
The decision was confirmed after the reunification of Germany, striking
down East German laws which permitted abortions under most
circumstances.
It should be noted that the decision does not make all abortions illegal. The legislature
implemented a system of mandatory counseling which has as one of its goals to present the case
that the developing unborn child is an independent human life. However, no legal sanction is
applied in the first 3 months of pregnancy if the counseling is completed and the abortion is
performed. Despite some of the reasoning contained in the decision, this system has not been
found by the court to conflict with the constitution. Some abortions are therefore de facto legal. A
significant number still occur, but the incidence per capita is about one-fifth that of the United
States.
protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important
interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life.
At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain
regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore,
cannot be said to be absolute….We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes
the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified, and must be considered against important
state interests in regulation.
… (a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its
effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting
its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways
that are reasonably related to maternal health.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of
human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in
appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.
This holding, we feel, is consistent with the relative weights of the respective interests involved,
with the lessons and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common law, and
with the demands of the profound problems of the present day. The decision leaves the State free to
place increasing restrictions on abortion as the period of pregnancy lengthens, so long as those
restrictions are tailored to the recognized state interests. The decision vindicates the right of the
physician to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment up to the points
where important state interests provide compelling justifications for intervention. Up to those
points, the abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision, and
basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician. If an individual practitioner abuses the
privilege of exercising proper medical judgment, the usual remedies, judicial and intra-professional,
are available.
Extracts from the decision
"Abortion is an act of killing"
The interruption of pregnancy irrevocably destroys an existing human life. Abortion is an act of
killing. The description now common, "interruption of pregnancy," cannot camouflage this fact.
No legal regulation can pass over the fact that this act offends against the fundamental
inviolability and indisposability of human life protected by Article 2, Paragraph 2, Sentence 1, of
the Basic Law.
….
The security of human existence against encroachments by the state would be incomplete if it did
not also embrace the prior step of "completed life," unborn life.
….
Right to Life implies state's duty to foster life
The State's duty to protect forbids not only direct state attacks against life developing itself, but
also requires the state to protect and foster this life.
….
The guiding principle of the precedence of prevention over repression is also valid particularly
for the protection of unborn life. It is therefore the task of the state to employ, in the first
instance, social, political, and welfare means for securing developing life. The primary concern is
to strengthen readiness of the expectant mother to accept the pregnancy as her own responsibility
and to bring the child [in the womb] to full life. Regardless of how the state fulfills its obligation
to protect, it should not be forgotten that developing life itself is entrusted by nature in the first
place to the protection of the mother. To reawaken and, if required, to strengthen the maternal
duty to protect, where it is lost, should be the principal goal of the endeavors of the state for the
protection of life. Of course, the possibilities for the legislature to influence are limited. Measures
introduced by the legislature are frequently only indirect and effective only after completion of
the time-consuming process of comprehensive education and the alteration in the attitudes an
philosophies of society achieved thereby.
….
Prevention is preferable to punishment
The legislature is not prohibited, in consideration of the points of view set out above, from
expressing the legal condemnation of abortion required by the Basic Law in ways other than the
threat of punishment. The decisive factor is whether the totality of the measures serving the
protection of the unborn life, whether they be in civil law or in public law, especially of a social-
legal or of a penal nature, guarantees an actual protection corresponding to the importance of the
legal value to be secured. In the extreme case, namely, if the protection required by the
constitution can be achieved in no other way, the lawgiver can be obligated to employ the means
of the penal law for the protection of developing life. The penal norm represents, to a certain
extent, the "ultimate reason" in the armory of the legislature. According to the principle of
proportionality, a principle of the just state, which prevails for the whole of the public law,
including constitutional law, the legislature may make use of this means only cautiously and with
restraint. However, this final means must also be employed, if an effective protection of life
cannot be achieved in other ways.
….
Legal norms and respect for life
The legislature, by repealing the punishability of abortions during the first twelve weeks,
deprives prenatal life in the future of the socio-ethical appreciation of its value among people.
That penal norms possess power to form the standards of socio-ethical judgment for the citizenry
corresponds to proven findings of legal sociology.
….
The term solution [as in Roe v. Wade] would lead to the disappearance of the general awareness
of the worthiness of protection of unborn life during the first three months of pregnancy. It would
lend support to the view that the interruption of pregnancy, in any case in the early stage of
pregnancy, is as subject to the unrestricted right of disposition of the pregnant woman as the
prevention of pregnancy.
….
Protection of unborn life is in contrast to Nazi legal reasoning
The express incorporation into the Basic Law of the self-evident right to life -- in contrast to the
Weimar Constitution -- may be explained principally as a reaction to the "destruction of life
unworthy of life," to the "final solution" and "liquidations," which were carried out by the
National Socialistic Regime as measures of state. Article 2, Paragraph 2, Sentence 1, of the Basic
Law, just as it contains the abolition of the death penalty in Article 102, includes "a declaration of
the fundamental worth of human life and of a concept of the state which stands in emphatic
contrast to the philosophies of a political regime to which the individual life meant little and
which therefore practiced limitless abuse with its presumed right over life and death of the
citizen."
….
Not only an individual matter
The condemnation of abortion must be clearly expressed in the legal order. The false impression
must be avoided that the interruption of pregnancy is the same social process as, for example,
approaching a physician for healing an illness or indeed a legally irrelevant alternative for the
prevention of conception. The state may not abdicate its responsibility even through the
recognition of a "legally free area," by which the state abstains from the value judgment and
abandons this judgment to the decision of the individual to be made on the basis of his own sense
of responsibility.
….
Abortion and the right to privacy
The obligation of the state to take the life developing itself under protection exists, as a matter of
principle, even against the mother. Without doubt, the natural connection of unborn life with that
of the mother establishes an especially unique relationship, for which there is no parallel in other
circumstances of life. Pregnancy belongs to the sphere of intimacy of the woman, the protection
of which is constitutionally guaranteed through Article 2, Paragraph 1, in connection with Article
1, Paragraph 1, of the Basic Law. Were the embryo to be considered only as a part of the maternal
organism the interruption of pregnancy would remain in the area of the private structuring of
one's life, where the legislature is forbidden to encroach. Since, however, the one about to be
born is an independent human being who stands under the protection of the constitution, there is
a social dimension to the interruption of pregnancy which makes it amenable to and in need of
regulation by the state. The right of the woman to the free development of her personality, which
has as its content the freedom of behavior in a comprehensive sense and accordingly embraces
the personal responsibility of the woman to decide against parenthood and the responsibilities
flowing from it, can also, it is true, likewise demand recognition and protection. This right,
however, is not guaranteed without limits -- the rights of others, the constitutional order, and the
moral law limit it. A priori, this right can never include the authorization to intrude upon the
protected sphere of right of another without justifying reason or much less to destroy that sphere
along with the life itself; this is even less so, if, according to the nature of the case, a special
responsibility exists precisely for this life.
….
A compromise which guarantees the protection of the life of the one about to be born and permits
the pregnant woman the freedom of abortion is not possible since the interruption of pregnancy
always means the destruction of the unborn life. In the required balancing, "both constitutional
values are to be viewed in their relationship to human dignity, the center of the value system of
the constitution". A decision oriented to Article 1, Paragraph 1, of the Basic Law must come
down in favor of the precedence of the protection of life for the child [in the womb] over the
right of the pregnant woman to self-determination. Regarding many opportunities for
development of personality, she can be adversely affected through pregnancy, birth and the
education of her children. On the other hand, the unborn life is destroyed through the interruption
of pregnancy. According to the principle of the balance which preserves most of competing
constitutionally protected positions in view of the fundamental idea of Article 19, Paragraph 2, of
the Basic Law, precedence must be given to the protection of the life of the child about to be
born. This precedence exists as a matter of principle for the entire duration of pregnancy and may
not be placed in question for any particular time.
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 673 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 674 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 675 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 676 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 677 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 678 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 679 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 680 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 681 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 682 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 683 1975
HeinOnline -- 21 McGill L. J. 684 1975
Friday, November 6, 2015
14:00 – 15:00
Comparative Constitutional Law, Christof Maria Fritzen
Disccussion: EU Law and national law
M. v. Germany, European Court of Human Rights, December 17, 2009
European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Art. 5 § 1, Art 7
Title: M. v. Germany
Application No: 19359/04
Respondent: Germany
Referred by:
Date of reference
by Commission:
Date of reference
by State:
Date of
Judgment:
17-12-2009
Articles: 5-1
7-1
41
Conclusion:Violation of article 5-1
Violation of article 7-1
Compensation awarded
Keywords: LAWFUL ARREST OR DETENTION / NULLA POENA
SINE LEGE
Summary: (Press release)
The applicant is a German citizen, who was born in 1957 and is currently
detained in the Schwalmstadt Prison. After a long history of previous
convictions, the Marburg Regional Court convicted him of attempted murder
and robbery and sentenced him to five years' imprisonment in November 1986.
At the same time it ordered his placement in preventive detention
(Sicherungsverwahrung), relying on the report of a neurological and psychiatric
expert, who found that the applicant had a strong tendency to commit offences
which seriously harmed his victims' physical integrity, that it was likely he
would commit further acts of violence and that he was therefore dangerous to
the public. After having served his full prison sentence, the applicant's repeated
requests between 1992 and 1998 for a suspension on probation of his preventive
detention were dismissed by two regional courts, respectively relying on an
expert report and taking into consideration the applicant's violent and aggressive
conduct in prison. In April 2001 the Marburg Regional Court again refused to
suspend on probation the applicant's preventive detention and ordered its
extension beyond September 2001, when he would have served ten years in this
form of detention. This decision was upheld by the Frankfurt am Main Court of
Appeal in October 2001, finding, as had the lower court, that the applicant's
dangerousness necessitated his continued detention.
Both Courts relied on Article 67 d § 3 of the Criminal Code, as amended in
1998. Under that provision, applicable also to prisoners whose preventive
detention had been ordered prior to the amendment, the duration of a convicted
person's first period of preventive detention could be extended to an unlimited
period of time. Under the version of the Article in force at the time of the
applicant's offence and conviction, a first period of preventive detention could
not exceed ten years. In February 2004 the Federal Constitutional Court
dismissed the applicant's constitutional complaint against these decisions in a
leading judgment, holding that the prohibition of retrospective punishment under
the German Basic Law did not extend to measures such as preventive detention,
which had always been understood as differing from penalties under the
Criminal Code's twin-track system of penalties on the one hand and measures of
correction and prevention on the other.
The applicant complained under Article 5 § 1 that his continued preventive
detention violated his right to liberty. In particular he alleged that there was not
a sufficient causal connection between his conviction in 1986 and his continued
detention after the completion of ten years in preventive detention. He further
complained under Article 7 § 1 that the retrospective extension of his detention
from a maximum of ten years to an unlimited period of time violated his right
not to have a heavier penalty imposed on him than the one applicable at the time
of his offence.
Article 5 § 1 The Court first confirmed that the applicant's preventive detention before expiry
of the ten-year-period was covered by Article 5 § 1 (a) as being detention "after
conviction" by the sentencing court.
As regards his preventive detention beyond the ten-year period, however, the
Court found that there was no sufficient causal connection between his
conviction and his continued deprivation of liberty. When the sentencing court
ordered the applicant's preventive detention in 1986 this decision meant that he
could be kept in this form of detention for a clearly defined maximum period.
Without the amendment of the Criminal Code in 1998 the courts responsible for
the execution of sentences would not have had jurisdiction to extend the
duration of the detention.
The Court moreover found that the applicant's continued detention had not been
justified by the risk that he could commit further serious offences if released, as
these potential offences were not sufficiently concrete and specific so as to fall
under sub-paragraph (c) of Article 5 § 1. Furthermore, the applicant could not
have been kept as a "person of unsound mind" within the meaning of Article 5 §
1 (e). The Frankfurt am Main Court of Appeal had found that he no longer
suffered from a serious mental disorder, which had been established earlier by
the lower courts.
The Court therefore unanimously concluded that the applicant's preventive
detention beyond the ten-year period amounted to a violation of Article 5 § 1.
Article 7 § 1 The Court principally had to determine whether preventive detention was to be
qualified as a penalty for the purpose of Article 7 § 1. Like a prison sentence,
preventive detention entailed a deprivation of liberty. In practice in Germany,
persons subject to preventive detention were detained in ordinary prisons. There
were minor alterations to the detention regime, but no substantial difference
could be discerned between the execution of a prison sentence and that of a
preventive detention order. Moreover, pursuant to the Execution of Sentences
Act both forms of detention served the aim of protecting the public and helping
the detainee to become capable of leading a responsible life outside prison.
The Court further noted, agreeing with the findings of the Council of Europe's
Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Committee for the
Prevention of Torture about preventive detention in Germany, that there was
currently no sufficient psychological support specifically aimed at prisoners in
preventive detention that would distinguish their condition of detention from
that of ordinary long-term prisoners.
As to the severity of preventive detention, the Court noted that following the
change in law in 1998 the measure no longer had a maximum duration and that
the condition for its suspension on probation - there being no danger the
detainee would re-offend - was difficult to fulfil. The measure was therefore
among the severest which could be imposed under the German Criminal Code.
The Court therefore concluded that preventive detention was indeed to be
qualified as a penalty.
The Court was further not convinced by the Government's argument that the
extension of the applicant's detention merely concerned the execution of the
penalty imposed on the applicant by the sentencing court. Given that at the time
of the offence the applicant could have been kept in preventive detention only
for a maximum of ten years, the extension constituted an additional penalty
which had been imposed on the applicant retrospectively.
The Court therefore unanimously concluded that there had been a violation of
Article 7 § 1.
Article 41 The Court awarded the applicant 50,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary
damage.
M. v. Germany, ECtHR, Strasbourg, December 17, 2009, timeline
1986 1992 1998 2001 2004 2009
M. sentenced to M.’s repeated requests for April, Marburg Court: Fed. Cstl. Ct: ECtHR:
- imprisonment 5y suspension on probation prev. detention M.’ cstl. complaint M.’s complaint
- prev. detention, of prev. detention, refused extended beyond against Frankfurt accepted:
max 10 y Sep 2001, no limit Ct. of Appeals violation of
dismissed Art. 5-1, 7-1,
Frankfurt Ct of App: compensation
Confirmed
Change of German
Criminal Code,
sec 67 d 3:
no max time for
detention
Federal Constitutional Court - Press office -
Press release no. 31/2011 of 4 May 2011
Judgment of 4 May 2011
Preventive Detention I
2 BvR 2365/09, 2 BvR 740/10
Preventive Detention II
2 BvR 2333/08, 2 BvR 1152/10, 2 BvR 571/10
Provisions on Preventive Detention Unconstitutional
Today, the Federal Constitutional Court pronounced its judgment on the
constitutional complaints lodged by four detainees under preventive
detention. They object to their placement in preventive detention being
continued after the expiry of the ten-year maximum period provided by
the former legislation (Preventive Detention I case) and respectively,
to preventive detention being imposed retrospectively (Preventive
Detention II case).
Information on the facts of the cases is given in Press Release no.
117/2010 of 16 December 2010. It can be accessed on the Federal
Constitutional Court’s website (in German).
The Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court decided that all
provisions of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch) and of the Juvenile
Court Act (Jugendgerichtsgesetz) on the imposition and duration of
preventive detention are not compatible with the fundamental right to
liberty of the detainees under preventive detention from Article 2.2
sentence 2 in conjunction with Article 104.1 of the Basic Law
(Grundgesetz – GG) because the provisions do not satisfy the
constitutional requirement of establishing a distance between preventive
detention and prison sentences (Abstandsgebot).
Furthermore, the Federal Constitutional Court held that the provisions
on the retrospective prolongation of preventive detention beyond the
former ten-year maximum period and on the retrospective imposition of
preventive detention in criminal law relating to adult and to juvenile
offenders infringe the rule-of-law precept of the protection of
legitimate expectations under Article 2.2 sentence 2 in conjunction with
Article 20.3 GG.
The Federal Constitutional Court ordered the continued applicability of
the provisions that were declared unconstitutional until the entry into
force of new legislation, at the latest until 31 May 2013. In essence,
it made the following transitional arrangements:
1. In the so-called old cases, i.e. cases in which preventive detention
continues beyond the former ten-year maximum period, and in cases of
retrospective preventive detention, placement in preventive detention or
its continuance may only be imposed if a high risk of the detainee’s
committing most serious crimes of violence or sexual offences can be
inferred from specific circumstances of the detainee’s person or conduct
and where the detainee suffers from a mental disorder within the meaning
of § 1.1 no. 1 of the Therapy Placement Act
(Therapieunterbringungsgesetz). The executing courts must immediately
examine whether these prerequisites of continued preventive detention
exist; where they do not exist, the courts are to order the release of
the detainees under preventive detention affected until 31 December 2011
at the latest.
2. In the transitional period, the other provisions on the imposition
and duration of preventive detention may only be applied subject to the
proviso of a strict review of proportionality; as a general rule,
proportionality is only respected where there is a danger of the person
affected committing serious crimes of violence or sexual offences in the
future.
The Senate rescinded the court rulings challenged by the constitutional
complaints and based on the unconstitutional provisions because they
infringe the complainants’ fundamental right to liberty and their
constitutional concerns relating to the protection of legitimate
expectations and referred the matters back to the non-constitutional
courts for new rulings.
In essence, the decision is based on the following considerations:
I. Interpretation of the Basic Law in a manner that is open to
international law
1. The final and binding effect of the Federal Constitutional Court’s
decision of 5 February 2004 (2 BvR 2029/01), which declared the
elimination of the ten-year maximum period for preventive detention that
had applied previously and the application of the new legislation to the
so-called old cases constitutional, does not constitute a procedural bar
against the admissibility of the constitutional complaints. This is
because the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR),
which contain new aspects for the interpretation of the Basic Law, are
equivalent to legally relevant changes, which may lead to the final and
binding effect of a Federal Constitutional Court decision being
transcended.
This is the case here with regard to the judgment of the ECtHR of 17
December 2009 by which the Court held that the retrospective
prolongation of preventive detention infringes the right to liberty from
Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the ban
on retrospective punishment provided in Article 7 ECHR.
2. It is true that at national level, the European Convention on Human
Rights ranks below the Basic Law. However, the provisions of the Basic
Law are to be interpreted in a manner that is open to international law
(völkerrechtsfreundlich). At the level of constitutional law, the text
of the Convention and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights
serve as interpretation aids for the determination of the contents and
scope of the fundamental rights and of rule-of-law principles enshrined
in the Basic Law.
An interpretation that is open to international law does not require the
Basic Law’s statements to be schematically aligned with those of the
European Convention on Human Rights but requires its valuations to be
taken on to the extent that this is methodically justifiable and
compatible with the Basic Law’s standards.
II. Liberty right infringement – distance requirement
The serious encroachment upon the right to liberty which preventive
detention constitutes can only be justified if it is subject to a strict
review of proportionality and if strict requirements placed on the
decisions on which it is based and on the organisation of its execution
are satisfied. The existing provisions regarding preventive detention do
not satisfy the constitutional (minimum) requirements with regard to the
arrangement of the execution of preventive detention.
Due to the fundamentally different objectives and bases of legitimation
of prison sentences and preventive detention, the deprivation of liberty
effected by preventive detention must keep a marked distance from the
execution of a prison sentence (so-called distance requirement
(Abstandsgebot)). While a prison sentence serves the retribution of
culpably committed offences, the deprivation of liberty of a detainee
under preventive detention solely pursues preventive objectives, namely
the prevention of criminal offences in the future. It is exclusively
based on a prognosis of future dangerousness and in the interest of the
general public’s safety it imposes a special sacrifice, so to speak, on
the person affected. Therefore, preventive detention is only justifiable
if with regard to its arrangement, the legislature takes due account of
the special character of the encroachment that it constitutes and
ensures that further burdens beyond the indispensable deprivation of
“external” liberty are avoided. This must be taken account of by a
liberty-oriented execution aimed at therapy which clearly shows to the
detainee under preventive detention and to the general public the purely
preventive character of the measure. What is required for this is an
overall concept of preventive detention with a clear therapeutic
orientation towards the objective of minimising the danger emanating
from the detainee and of thus reducing the duration of the deprivation
of liberty to what is absolutely necessary. The placement in preventive
detention must be visibly determined by the perspective of regaining
liberty. The liberty-oriented adherence to the distance requirement also
takes account of the valuations made by the European Court of Human
Rights with regard to Article 7.1 ECHR, which already held in its
judgment of 17 December 2009 that preventive detention was a penalty by
its nature due to its lack of distance from the execution of prison
sentences, and emphasised the necessity of special individual support of
the detainee under preventive detention.
The distance requirement, which is enshrined in constitutional law,
binds all state authority and is primarily directed at the legislature,
which is required to develop an overall concept of preventive detention
in line with this requirement and to lay it down in corresponding
legislation. The legislation must at minimum comprise the following
aspects: preventive detention may only be ordered and executed as the
ultima ratio. Where therapeutic treatment is necessary, it must begin so
early during the preceding execution of the prison sentence, and must be
carried out so intensively, that it will be terminated, whenever
possible, before the end of the prison sentence. At the beginning of the
execution of preventive detention at the latest, an examination with a
view to treatment must be conducted which complies with state-of-the-art
scientific requirements; on the basis of the examination, an execution
plan is to be drawn up and intensive therapeutic care of the detainee by
qualified personnel must be conducted which opens up a realistic
perspective of release. The cooperation of the person concerned in this
process is to be encouraged by targeted motivational work. To take
account of the preventive detention’s character of special crime
prevention, life in preventive detention must be adapted to the general
living conditions to the extent that there are no conflicting security
concerns. This does not require the complete spatial detachment of
preventive detention from the execution of prison sentences; detainees
under preventive detention must, however, be accommodated separately
from the prison regime in special buildings and wards which comply with
the therapeutic requirements, in which family and social contacts with
the outside world are possible and which have sufficient personnel
resources. Moreover, the legal concept of preventive detention must
contain standards for the relaxation of the execution rules and for the
preparation of release. Furthermore, the detainee must be granted an
effectively enforceable legal claim to the measures reducing his
dangerousness being implemented. Finally, the continuation of the
preventive detention is to be judicially reviewed at least once a year.
The present provisions on preventive detention, and consequently their
actual execution, do not satisfy these requirements. Instead, the
legislature has expanded preventive detention more and more without
taking into account the distance requirement, which was put into
concrete terms by the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment of 5
February 2004. Without complying with the distance requirement, the
institution of preventive detention on the whole cannot be reconciled
with the fundamental right to liberty of the detainees under preventive
detention. The Federal and the Land (state) legislatures together are
under the duty to develop a liberty-oriented overall concept of
preventive detention aimed at therapy which does not leave decisive
issues to the executive’s and the judiciary’s decision-making power but
determines their action in all relevant areas.
III. Infringement of the principle of the protection of legitimate
expectations
Furthermore, the provisions regarding the retrospective prolongation of
preventive detention beyond the former ten-year maximum period and
regarding the retrospective imposition of preventive detention infringe
the rule-of-law principle of the protection of legitimate expectations
under Article 2.2 sentence 2 in conjunction with Article 20.3 GG.
The provisions contain a serious encroachment on the confidence of the
group of persons concerned in preventive detention ending after ten
years (regarding the so-called old cases) or in preventive detention not
being imposed (regarding the cases in which preventive detention was
imposed retrospectively). In view of the serious encroachment on the
right to liberty involved with preventive detention, the concerns
regarding the protection of legitimate expectations affected carry
particular weight under constitutional law, which is further increased
by the valuations of the European Convention on Human Rights. According
to the valuation of Article 7.1 ECHR, the result of the insufficient
distance of the execution of preventive detention from that of prison
sentences is that the weight of the confidence of the persons affected
comes close to an absolute protection of legitimate expectations.
Furthermore, the valuations of Article 5 ECHR are to be taken into
account on the part of the persons affected who are placed in preventive
detention. According to this provision, and taking into account the
case-law of the ECtHR, in the cases of preventive detention having been
prolonged or ordered retrospectively that are at issue here, a
justification of the deprivation of liberty can only be considered in
practice if an unsound mind within the meaning of Article 5.1 sentence 2
lit e ECHR exists. The provision requires the existence of a mental
disorder that has been reliably ascertained and is continuing. The legal
provisions must provide the diagnosis of such disorder as an explicit
constituent element. Furthermore, to be justified, the deprivation of
liberty requires that the placement in preventive detention of the
person affected be organised in a way that takes into account the fact
that the person is under preventive detention due to a mental disorder.
Taking these valuations into account, and with a view to the
considerable encroachment on the confidence of the detainees under
preventive detention whose right to liberty is affected, the legitimate
legislative objective of the challenged provisions, namely to protect
the general public from dangerous offenders, to a large extent takes
second place to the confidence, protected by fundamental rights, of the
group of persons affected. A deprivation of liberty through preventive
detention which is ordered or prolonged retrospectively can therefore
only be regarded as still proportionate if the required distance from
punishment is kept, if a high danger of most serious crimes of violence
or sexual offences can be inferred from specific circumstances of the
detainee’s person or conduct and if the requirements of Article 5.1
sentence 2 ECHR are satisfied. Only in such exceptional cases can a
predominance of public safety interests still be assumed.
The provisions at issue here do not satisfy these requirements. They
also cannot be interpreted in such a way that they are still
constitutional.
IV. Transitional arrangement
To avoid a "legal vacuum", the Federal Constitutional Court did not
declare the unconstitutional provisions void but ordered their continued
applicability for a limited period of time. This is because the
declaration of nullity of the relevant provisions would have the
consequence that a legal basis for continuing preventive detention would
be lacking; all persons placed in preventive detention would have to be
released immediately, which would cause almost insoluble problems to the
courts, the administration and the police.
With a view to the extent of the overall concept of preventive detention
which must be developed by the legislature, to the necessary creation of
additional personnel resources and to the implementation of the measures
necessary to spatially separate preventive detention and imprisonment,
continued applicability must be ordered for a period of two years.
However, with regard to the encroachment on fundamental rights resulting
from preventive detention, a transitional arrangement is required to
ensure that the minimum constitutional requirements are satisfied.
Regarding the provisions that are incompatible with the requirement of
the protection of legitimate expectations (III.), the Therapy Placement
Act, which entered into force on 1 January 2011, must be drawn upon for
this. With this Act, the German legislature, taking into account the
special requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, has
created another category for the placement of persons with mental
disorders who are potentially dangerous due to their criminal offences
which focuses on the present mental situation of the persons affected
and their dangerousness resulting therefrom.
This press release is also available in the original German version.
European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
ARTICLE 5 - Right to liberty and security
§ 1.Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law:
(a)the lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court;(b)the lawful arrest or detention of a person for noncompliance with the lawful order of a court or in order to secure the fulfilment of any obligation prescribed by law;(c)the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so;(d)the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of educational supervision or his lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority;(e)the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants;(f)the lawful arrest or detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry into the country or of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition.
…..
ARTICLE 7 - No punishment without law
§ 1.No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed.
§ 2.This Article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations.