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This book is a comprehensive study of the institutional setting of European Constitutions and provides a systematic study of the constitutional principles and organisation of state powers. The following issues are addressed: Terminology; Notion and Functions of Constitution; Sources of Constitutional Law; Constituent and Amending Power; Protecting the Constitution; Directive Principles; Fundamental Constitutional Principles; Division of Powers; Division of Functions; Parliament; Head of State; Government and Administration; The Judicial Power.
This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or ‘twilight’ of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project ‘The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance’. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
'I can enthusiastically recommend and endorse this book. It serves the very important purpose of collecting key documents together in an elegant and accessible text. There currently exists a huge proliferation of material on the EU Constitution this volume makes a very wise selection of this profusion, compiling it into a manageable and informative whole. Nine chapters deal with the most significant matters concerning the Constitution. A short but well written introduction at the start of each chapter precedes following extracts. Part of the value of this book lies in the fact that it includes translations of some important documents which are difficult, or impossible, to access in English for example, recent decisions of national courts concerning the European Arrest Warrant. All in all, this work is a comprehensive, but not overwhelmingly large, collection of materials on the EU Constitution, and it will prove extremely valuable to all those working within this area of law. By presenting the Constitution, the background to the Constitution, and the issues it deals with, in this clear and informative way, it will shed new light upon, and help all of us to form our own judgements on, the EU Constitution, and its importance to our lives.' Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, King's College London, UK 'Whatever the ultimate fate of the EU's Constitutional Treaty, both the events which led to its conclusion and those which occurred afterwards during its ill-fated ratification process have profoundly shaped the future of the European Union as a constitutional project. This collection of materials offers an invaluable set of resources for understanding these events, in their widest legal and political context. The text will be useful to all those who seek to understand both why the EU has reached such a turning point, and where it might go in the future.' Jo Shaw, Edinburgh Law School, UK This book offers a selection of materials that enable a better understanding of some of the most important changes that would be introduced by the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in the EU legal and political system. It also helps to assess the need for the reforms embedded in the Constitutional Treaty as well as the quality of the formulations agreed upon by the signatory Member States. The book includes excerpts of the European Convention's work, selected statutory and constitutional provisions of the Member States, and also related passages from pertinent court decisions from both European courts as well as Member States' constitutional courts. Institutional and doctrinal analyses and relevant excerpts from the Constitutional Treaty itself are also included. Many of these documents directly relate to the provisions of the Constitutional Treaty, while the others, although not directly related, are nevertheless relevant to the debate surrounding it. The European Constitution, by two of the best experts on the Constitution for Europe, will be of great interest to researchers and teachers in the fields of European Law and European politics, and also to policy makers in European affairs.
This updated and expanded second edition of the successful Constitutions Compared handbook provides a user-friendly introduction to comparative constitutional law. The book covers the constitutional systems of the US, the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. It is a helpful guide for students who are exploring comparative constitutional law, and it is a useful foundation for more advanced graduate-level courses. The book's comparative approach is thematic. For each area of constitutional law, a general introduction and a comparative overview is provided, which is then followed by more detailed country chapters on that specific area. The themes addressed are: origins and main features of constitutions * federalism, unitarism, and decentralization * parliaments and lawmaking * governments, their parliaments, and their heads of state * judicial review and human rights. In addition, the book discusses the constitutional impact of the EU, the system of human-rights protection under the European Convention on Human Rights, and the interaction between the EU, European human rights, and national constitutions. The book includes a table giving an overview of the systems discussed, a glossary, and an expanded selection of freshly translated, important provisions from national constitutions and international treaties.
This book explores the adaptation of the constitutions of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) for membership in the European Union.
The 5th edition of this handbook provides a user-friendly introduction to comparative constitutional law. For each area of constitutional law, a general introduction and a comparative overview is provided, which is then followed by more detailed country chapters on that specific area. In this fifth edition, the author has expanded several chapters to provide for even more detail on national legal systems and constitutional comparison. In addition, he has updated the discussion wherever necessary. The book has also been expanded with a larger number of (sub)headings so as to allow for a better overview. Furthermore, this book most notably includes many constitutional developments in the constitutional systems within our scope. Including the 'Brexit' (to be) and the new compositions of the national and the European Parliament. In the previous edition the EU has more extensively been woven into this book, as a constitutional system per se and as an international organization which heavily impacts upon domestic constitutional law. This new edition has been expanded with chapters on human rights as they are protected in the constitutional legal systems, as well as in the multi-layered European legal order.This book has proven its success as a helpful guide for students who are for the first time exploring comparative constitutional law, and a solid foundation for more advanced graduate-level courses. It remains a thorough introduction which purports to give an overview, however with quite a few examples and applications in practice, and also sufficient legal and practical details to be accessible and to the point, whilst at the same time providing for the whole picture and highlighting general constitutional questions and perspectives.
Leading scholars of European constitutionalism highlight different facets of the constitutional discussion.
European constitutionalisation has met with scepticism - this book analyses the steps necessary to move to EU's 'Second Constitution'.
This set of essays explores how constitutions change and are changed in a number of countries, and how the 'constitution' of the EU changes and is changed. For a range of reasons, including internal and external pressures, the constitutional arrangements in many countries are changing. Constitutional change may be formal, involving amendments to the texts of Constitutions or the passage of legislation of a clearly constitutional kind, or informal and organic, as where court decisions affect the operation of the system of government, or where new administrative and other arrangements (eg agencification) affect or articulate or alter the operation of the constitution of the country, without the need to resort to formal change. The countries in this study include, from the EU, a common law country, a Nordic one, a former communist state, several civil law systems, parliamentary systems and a hybrid one (France). Chapters on non EU countries include two on developing countries (India and South Africa), two on common law countries without entrenched written constitutions (Israel and New Zealand), a presidential system (the USA) and three federal ones (Switzerland, the USA and Canada). In the last two chapters the editors conduct a detailed comparative analysis of the jurisdiction-based chapters and explore the question whether any overarching theory or theories about constitutional change in liberal democracies emerge from the study.