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Foreword: Understanding Constitutional Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

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References

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66 This is unlike supreme courts holding the power of constitutional review, which can decide between basing their rulings on statutory grounds and basing them on constitutional grounds. For a valuable attempt to model the conditions under which the U.S. Supreme Court will choose the statutory or the constitutional mode, see Pablo T. Spiller & Matthew L. Spitzer, Judicial Choice of Legal Doctrines, 8 J.L. Econ. & Org. 8 (1992).Google Scholar

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124 Inasmuch as legal academics see themselves as purveyors of doctrinal arguments for the courts, this means they, too, should avoid overt politicization. See Andreas Voßkuhle, Die politischen Dimensionen der Staatsrechtslehre, in Staatsrechtslehre als Wissenschaft 138 (Helmuth Schulze-Fielitz ed., 2007); Michael Stolleis, Staatsrechtslehre und Politik 26–27 (1996).Google Scholar

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128 Alexy speaks of “ideal” and “real” obligations (referring to the German word sollen). See Alexy, Zum Begriff, supra note 91, at 79. In this sense, an ideal obligation is any obligation that does not require that its content be both factually and legally possible in its entirety, but requires that its fulfillment be as extensive as possible. Id. at 81.Google Scholar

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130 Pointing to the danger that fundamental rights may lose their trump function as a result. See Jürgen Habermas, Die Einbeziehung Des Anderen 368 (1996).Google Scholar

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133 ‘Either one does or does not optimize,’ optimization imperatives, therefore, have the structure of rules. See Aulis Aarnio & Jan-Reinard Sieckmann, Taking Rules Seriously, in 42 ARSP Beiheft 187 (1990).Google Scholar

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139 On that score we cannot but agree with Judge Richard Posner when he says that:Google Scholar

Academics who are not seriously engaged with the judiciary urge judges to change by adopting this or that approach, and usually it is an approach designed to clip judges’ wings. Judges are not interested in having their wings clipped, but will happily adopt restrainist approaches as rhetorical tools to persuade others that what looks judicial assertiveness is obedience. Academics who are serious about wanting judges to change have to appeal to their self-interest.

See Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think 215–16 (2009).

140 Tusseau, Guillaume, A Plea for a Hint of Empiricism in Constitutional Theory: A Comment on Cesare Pinelli's “Constitutional Reasoning and Political Deliberation,” 14 German L.J. 1183 (2013).Google Scholar