Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T07:17:56.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Foreword: Understanding Constitutional Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Other
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Lenman, James, Reasons for Action: Justification vs. Explanation, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/reasons-just-vs-expl/ (last visited May 23, 2013).Google Scholar

2 Elster, Jon, Belief, Bias, and Ideology, in Rationality and Relativism 123, 123 (Martin Hollis & Steven Lukes eds., 1982).Google Scholar

3 Lenman, , supra note 1.Google Scholar

4 The distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification can be traced back to the work of Hans Reichenbach. See Clark Glymour & Frederick Eberhardt, Hans Reichenbach, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/reichenbach/ (last visited May 23, 2013).Google Scholar

5 On the distinction between small-c and large-c constitution (roughly equivalent to the distinction between formal and substantive constitutional law in continental European scholarship), see David S. Law, Constitutions, in The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research 376, 377 (Peter Cane & Herbert Kritzer eds., 2010).Google Scholar

6 See, e.g., John Ferejohn & Pasquale Pasquino, Constitutional Adjudication: Lessons from Europe, 82 Tex. L. Rev. 1671 (2004); Ferejohn, John & Pasquino, Pasquale, The Countermajoritarian Opportunity, 13 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 353 (2010); Ferejohn, John & Pasquino, Pasquale, Constitutional Courts as Deliberative Institutions: Towards an Institutional Theory of Constitutional Justice, in Constitutional Justice: East and West: Democratic Legitimacy and Constitutional Courts in Post-Communist Europe in a Comparative Perspective 21, 23 (Francisco Laporta, Aleksander Peczenik & Frederick Schauer eds., 2002).Google Scholar

7 See Bellamy's contribution in the present special issue, Richard Bellamy, Democracy as Public Law: The Case of Rights, 14 German L.J. 1017 (2013). See also Richard Bellamy, Political Constitutionalism (2007); Waldron, Jeremy, Law and Disagreement (1999); Waldron, Jeremy, The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review, 115 Yale L.J. 1346 (2005).Google Scholar

8 Kumm, Matthias, Alexy's Theory of Constitutional Rights and the Problem of Judicial Review, Institutional Reason: The Jurisprudence of Robert Alexy 201 (Matthias Klatt ed., 2012); Will Waluchow, A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree (2007); Richard H. Fallon, Jr., The Core of an Uneasy Case for Judicial Review, 121 Harv. L. Rev. 1693 (2007).Google Scholar

9 See Vibert, Frank, The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers (2007).Google Scholar

10 Legislative reasoning has received more attention from legal theorists in recent years, as attested to by the launch of a new peer-reviewed journal, The Theory and Practice of Legislation 1 (2013) (formerly known as Legisprudence), available at http://www.hartjournals.co.uk/legisprudence/.Google Scholar

11 See Torre, Massimo La, Theories of Legal Argumentation and Concepts of Law. An Approximation, 15 Ratio Juris 377, 377 (2002).Google Scholar

12 See infra Section D.Google Scholar

13 See, e.g., Pfersmann, Otto, Arguments Ontologiques et Argumentation Juridique, 47 Austriaca 53 (1998) (arguing that the study of legal reasoning must proceed on the basis of a pre-defined concept of law).Google Scholar

14 See Alexy, Robert, Theorie der juristischen Argumentation: Die Theorie des rationalen Diskurses als Theorie der juristischen Begründung, 134–37 (1978).Google Scholar

15 See Sartor, Giovanni, A Formal Model of Legal Argumentation, 7 Ratio Juris 177 (1994); Prakken, Henry & Sartor, Giovanni, A Dialectical Model of Assessing Conflicting Arguments in Legal Reasoning, 4 Artificial Intelligence L. 331 (1996); Prakken, Henry & Sartor, Giovanni, Argument-Based Extended Logic Programming with Defeasible Priorities, 7 J. Applied Non-Classical Logics 25 (1997).Google Scholar

16 See Barak, Aharon, Judicial Discretion (1989); Barak, Aharon, The Judge in a Democracy (2008).Google Scholar

17 With the half-exception of South Africa where a specific reference in the Constitution explicitly permits such considerations, even though important methodological questions raised by this provision remain unanswered, as explained by Francois Venter in the present special issue. See Francois Venter, Why Should the South African Constitutional Court Consider German Sources? Comment on Du Plessis and Rautenbach, 14 German L.J. 1579 (2013).Google Scholar

18 Rautenbach, Christa & Plessis, Lourens du, In the Name of Comparative Constitutional Jurisprudence: The Consideration of German Precedents by South African Constitutional Court Judges, 14 German L.J. 1539 (2013).Google Scholar

19 Lachmayer, Konrad, Constitutional Reasoning as Legitimacy of Constitutional Comparison, 14 German L.J. 1463 (2013).Google Scholar

20 See, e.g., Armin von Bogdandy, Pluralism, Direct Effect, and the Ultimate Say: On the Relationship Between International and Domestic Constitutional Law, 6 Int'l J. Const. L. 397 (2008); Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union and Beyond (Matej Avbelj & Jan Komárek eds., 2012); Julio Baquero Cruz, The Legacy of the Maastricht-Urteil and the Pluralist Movement, 14 Eur. L. J. 389 (2008); Torre, Massimo La, Legal Pluralism as Evolutionary Achievement of Community Law, 12 Ratio Juris 182 (1999); Rosenfeld, Michel, Rethinking Constitutional Ordering in an Era of Legal and Ideological Pluralism, 6 Int'l J. Const. L. 415 (2008); Walker, Neil, The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism, 65 Mod. L. Rev. 317–59 (2002); Maduro, Miguel Poiares, Contrapunctual Law: Europe's Constitutional Pluralism in Action, in Sovereignty in Transition 501 (Neil Walker ed., 2003).Google Scholar

21 Saunders, Cheryl, Constitutional Reasoning as Legitimacy of Constitutional Comparison, 14 German L.J. 1493 (2013).Google Scholar

23 For a criticism of legal and constitutional pluralism as mere rebranding of older theoretical positions, see Alexander Somek, Monism: A Tale of the Undead (University of Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper Series) (2010/22), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1606909.Google Scholar

24 See, e. g., Michael S. Moore, Interpreting Interpretation, in Law and Interpretation 1, 1 (Andrei Marmor ed., 1995).Google Scholar

25 Goldsworthy, Jeffrey, Clarifying, Creating and Changing Meaning in Constitutional Interpretation. A Comment on András Jakab, “Constitutional Reasoning in Constitutional Courts—European Perspective,” 14 German L.J. 1279 (2013).Google Scholar

26 See Solum, Lawrence B., The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, 27 Const. Comment. 95 (2010); Barnett, Randy E., Interpretation and Construction, 34 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 65 (2011); Whittington, Keith E., Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review (1999).Google Scholar

27 Goldsworthy, , supra note 25.Google Scholar

28 For an attempt to develop a more elaborate theoretical framework, see Arthur Dyevre, Comprendre et Analyser L'activité Décisionnelle des Cours et des Tribunaux: L'intérět de La Distinction Entre Interprétation et Concrétisation, 4 Jus Politicum 1, 4 (2010), available at http://www.juspoliticum.com/IMG/pdf/Dyevre_JP4.pdf; Otto Pfersmann, Le Sophisme Onomastique: Changer Au Lieu de Connaître. L'interprétation de La Constitution, in L'interpretation Constitutionnelle 33 (Ferdinand Mélin-Soucramanien ed., 2005).Google Scholar

29 See Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (1946). For a critical assessment of Kelsen's treatment of this distinction, see András Jakab, Problems of the Stufenbaulehre: Kelsen's Failure to Derive the Validity of a Norm from Another Norm, 20 Canadian J. of L. and Jurisprudence 35, 3568 (2007).Google Scholar

31 Id. For a critical assessment of Kelsen's treatment of this issue, see Jakab, supra note 29.Google Scholar

32 See infra, Section C.Google Scholar

33 Tamás Győrfi, In Search of a First-Person Plural, Second-Beset Theory of Constitutional Interpretation, 14 German L.J. 1077 (2013).Google Scholar

34 See, e. g., Ronald Dworkin, Freedom's law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (1999).Google Scholar

35 Austin, John, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined 157 (1995).Google Scholar

36 Győrfi, supra note 33.Google Scholar

37 Hans-Joachim Koch & Helmut Rüßmann, Juristische Begründungslehre: Eine Einführung in Grundprobleme der Rechtswissenschaft (1982).Google Scholar

38 See H. Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (1989); Dan Sperber & Deirdre Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition (1996).Google Scholar

39 See Győrfi, supra note 33.Google Scholar

40 Law and Interpretation: Essays in Legal Philosophy (Andrei Marmor ed., 1995); Pfersmann, Le Sophisme Onomastique, supra note 28; Whittington, supra note 26; Andrei Marmor, Interpretation and Legal Theory: Revised Second Edition (2005).Google Scholar

41 Cooper, Betsy, Judges in Jeopardy!: Could IBM's Watson Beat Courts at Their Own Game?, 121 Yale L.J. Online 87 (2011), http://yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal-pocket-part/legislation/judges-in-jeopardy!:-could-ibm's-watson-beat-courts-at-their-own-game?/.Google Scholar

42 See Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Grundgesetz][GG] [Basic Law], May 23, 1949, BGBl. I at art. 51(2) (Ger.) (“Each Land shall have at least three votes; Länder with more than two million inhabitants shall have four, Länder with more than six million inhabitants five, and Länder with more than seven million inhabitants six votes.”).Google Scholar

43 2008 Const. art. 7(1) (Fr.) (“The President of the Republic shall be elected by an absolute majority of votes cast. If such a majority is not obtained on the first ballot, a second ballot shall take place on the fourteenth day thereafter. Only the two candidates polling the greatest number of votes in the first ballot, after any withdrawal of better placed candidates, may stand in the second ballot.”).Google Scholar

44 Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [GG] [Basic Law], May 23, 1949, BGBl. I at art. 2(1) (Ger.) (“Every person shall have the right to free development of his personality insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or the moral law.”).Google Scholar

45 See Dyevre, Arthur, Technocracy and Distrust: Revisiting the Rationale for Judicial Review, SSRN eLibrary (2012), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2043262.Google Scholar

46 Jakab, András, Judicial Reasoning in Constitutional Courts. A European Perspective, 14 German L.J. 1215 (2013).Google Scholar

48 Groppi, Tania & Ponthoreau, Marie-Claire, The Use of Foreign Precedents by Constitutional Judges: A Limited Practice, An Uncertain Future, in The Use of Foreign Precedents by Constitutional Judges (Tania Groppi & Marie-Claire Ponthoreau eds., 2013).Google Scholar

49 See CONREASON: Constitutional Reasoning in Comparative Perspective, conreasonproject.com, http://www.conreasonproject.com/ (last visited May 24, 2013).Google Scholar

50 See Komárek, Jan, Judicial Lawmaking and Precedent in Supreme Courts, (LSE Working Paper No. 4/2011), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1793219.Google Scholar

51 Dyevre, See Arthur, Unifying the Field of Comparative Judicial Politics: Towards a General Theory of Judicial Behaviour, 2 Eur. Pol. Sc. Rev. 297 (2010).Google Scholar

52 Cameron, Charles M. & Kornhauser, Lewis A., Modeling Collegial Courts (3): Adjudication Equilibria (Revised) (NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 12–52, 2010), available at http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol14-No2/PDF_Vol_14_No_02_423-433_Developments_Schanze.pdf (hereinafter Cameron et al., Modeling Collegial Courts (3)); Jeffrey R. Lax, The New Judicial Politics of Legal Doctrine, 14 Ann. Rev. of Pol. Sci. 131 (2011).Google Scholar

53 Cameron, et al., supra note 52.Google Scholar

55 Hammond, Thomas H. et al., Strategic Behavior and Policy Choice on the U.S. Supreme Court 161–62 (2005); Jacobi, Tonja, Competing Models of Judicial Coalition Formation and Case Outcome Determination, 1 J. of Legal Analysis 411 (2009).Google Scholar

56 Lax, Jeffrey R. & Cameron, Charles M., Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the U.S. Supreme Court, 23 J.L. Econ. & Org. 276 (2007); Cliff Carrubba et al., Who Controls the Content of Supreme Court Opinions?, 56 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 400 (2012).Google Scholar

57 See, e.g., Thomas G. Hansford & James F. Spriggs II, The Politics of Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court (2006).Google Scholar

58 Jacobi, , supra note 55.Google Scholar

59 Clark, Tom S. & Lauderdale, Benjamin, Locating Supreme Court Opinions in Doctrine Space, 54 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 871 (2010).Google Scholar

60 See Benesh, Sara C. & Czarnezki, Jason J., The Ideology of Legal Interpretation, 29 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 113 (2009); Gates, John B. & Phelps, Glenn A., Intentionalism in Constitutional Opinions, 49 Pol. Res. Q. 245 (1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Benesh, & Czarnezki, , supra note 60; Gates & Phelps, supra note 60; R. M. Howard & J. A. Segal, An Original Look at Originalism, 36 Law & Soc'y Rev. 113 (2002); Pamela C. Corley et al., The Supreme Court and Opinion Content: The Use of the Federalist Papers, 58 Pol. Res. Q. 329 (2005).Google Scholar

62 See Staudt, Nancy et al., Judging Statutes: Interpretive Regimes, 38 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1909 (2004); Zeppos, Nicholas S., Use of Authority in Statutory Interpretation: An Empirical Analysis, 70 Tex. L. Rev. 1073 (1991).Google Scholar

63 Staudt, et al., supra note 62, at 1910.Google Scholar

64 Staudt, et al., supra note 62; Zeppos, supra note 62.Google Scholar

65 See Ginsburg, Tom & Versteeg, Mila, The Global Spread of Constitutional Review: An Empirical Analysis, available at http://www.law.northwestern.edu/colloquium/law_economics/documents/Spring2012_Ginsburg_Global_Constitutional.pdf (last visited May 15, 2013).Google Scholar

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

67 For a formal analysis of the incentives to write vague opinions, see Jeffrey K. Staton & Georg Vanberg, The Value of Vagueness: Delegation, Defiance, and Judicial Opinions, 52 Am. Journal of Pol. Sci. 504 (2008).Google Scholar

68 See Kelemen, Katalin, Dissenting Opinions in Constitutional Courts, 14 German L.J. 1345 (2013).Google Scholar

70 Filho, Roberto Fragale, Increasing Judicial Transparency: When Brazilian Court TV Officially Meets YouTube, in Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on E-Government, National Center for Taxation Studies and University of Limerick, Ireland (June 17–18, 2010) (David O'Donnell ed., 2010).Google Scholar

71 See Pasquino, & Ferejohn, , supra note 6; Ferejohn & Pasquino, Constitutional Adjudication, supra note 6.Google Scholar

72 Kelemen, , supra note 68.Google Scholar

73 Whether a ban on separate opinions actually results in longer court opinions is not obvious. Recent research on dissenting behavior on U.S. federal courts reveals that majority opinions are, on average, twenty percent longer when a dissent is published. See Lee Epstein et al., Why (And When) Judges Dissent: A Theoretical And Empirical Analysis, 3 J. of Legal Analysis 101 (2011).Google Scholar

74 Even so, valuable insights into the judicial opinion-making process have been gained from interview data. Uwe Kranenpohl, for example, has investigated the internal decision-making dynamic and the influence of the opinion-writer on judicial outcomes on the German Federal Constitutional Court by interviewing dozens of constitutional judges. See Uwe Kranenpohl, Herr des Verfahrens oder nur einer unter Acht? Der Einfluss des Berichterstatters in der Rechtsprechungspraxis des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, 30 Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 135; Uwe Kranenpohl, Hinter dem Schleier des Beratungsgeheimnisses (2010).Google Scholar

75 See Bertrand Mathieu et al., Les Grandes Deliberations du Conseil Constitutionnel 1958–83 (2009).Google Scholar

76 Jack Knight & Lee Epstein, The Choices Justices Make (1st ed. 1997).Google Scholar

77 Both forms of communication matter in the case of constitutional discourse. This is obvious for verbal communication. But non-verbal messages have their importance, too. Consider, for example, the distinct dresscodes constitutional judges hold on to—German constitutional judges wear the distinctive velvet robe—and the carefully orchestrated choreography that typically accompanies the announcement of constitutional court rulings, which, in so many ways, mimics a church service.Google Scholar

78 Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives 43 (1950).Google Scholar

79 Burley, Anne-Marie & Mattli, Walter, Europe before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration, 47 Int'l Org. 41, 7273 (1993).Google Scholar

80 See Section B, supra. Google Scholar

81 Muñoz, Fernando, Not Only “Who Decides”: The Rhetoric of Conflicts over Judicial Appointments, 14 German L.J. 1195 (2013).Google Scholar

82 Aïda Torres Pérez, On Judicial Appointments and Constitutional Adjudication. A Reply to Fernando Muñoz, 14 German L.J. 1209 (2013).Google Scholar

83 Gibson, James L. et al., On the Legitimacy of National High Courts, 92 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 343, 345 (1998).Google Scholar

84 Bork, Robert H., Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L.J. 1, 4 (1971).Google Scholar

85 Roberts, John G., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Confirmation Hearing on the nomination to be Chief Justice of the United States (Sept. 12, 2005), http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh109-158/55-56.pdf.Google Scholar

86 See the Federal Constitutional Court website, http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/organisation/aufgaben.html (last visited May 25, 2013).Google Scholar

87 United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 6364 (1936).Google Scholar

88 Neal Tate & Torbjorn Vallinder, The Global Expansion of Judicial Power (1995).Google Scholar

89 Szente, Zoltán, The Interpretive Practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court—A Critical View, 14 German L.J. 1591 (2013); Gábor Attila Tóth, Historicism or Art Nouveau in Constitutional Interpretation? A Comment on “The Interpretive Practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court—A Critical View” by Zoltán Szente, 14 German L.J. 1615 (2013).Google Scholar

90 Szente, , supra note 89; Tóth, supra note 89.Google Scholar

91 For an introduction to the concept and literature on framing techniques, see Robert D. Benford & David A. Snow, Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment, 26 Ann. Rev. of Sociology 611 (2000); Entman, Robert M., Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm, 43 J. of Communication 51 (1993).Google Scholar

92 See Stone, Alec, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective (1992); Landfried, Christine, Bundesverfassungsgericht und Gesetzgeber: Wirkungen der Verfassungsrechtsprechung auf parlamentarische Willensbildung und soziale Realität (1984).Google Scholar

93 Jakab, , supra note 46; Szente, supra note 89.Google Scholar

94 For the Supreme Court of Canada's same-sex marriage opinion, see Re Same-Sex Marriage, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 698 (Can.) (“The “frozen concepts” reasoning runs contrary to one of the most fundamental principles of Canadian constitutional interpretation: [T]hat our Constitution is a living tree which, by way of progressive interpretation, accommodates and addresses the realities of modern life.”).Google Scholar

95 See Mowbray, Alastair, The Creativity of the European Court of Human Rights, 5 Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 57 (2005).Google Scholar

96 Esacove, Anne W., Dialogic Framing: The Framing/Counterframing of “Partial-Birth” Abortion, 74 Soc. Inquiry 70 (2004).Google Scholar

97 The frequency with which these negative frames are used suggests the intriguing paradox that the judges’ critics are often precisely those who contribute most to perpetuate a legalistic picture of adjudication.Google Scholar

98 For an introduction to content analysis, see Klaus H. Krippendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology (3rd ed., 2012).Google Scholar

99 Because they focus on the lexical dimension of language and model the occurrence of words as independent events (the occurrence of “rancid” does not make the occurrence of “butter” any more likely), automated content analysis techniques cannot directly capture the propositional content of texts. Indeed, they will usually fail to differentiate between the statement “democracy matters” and the contrary statement “democracy doesn't matter.” Yet we can plausibly assume that political actors, including judges, will refrain from making statement such as “democracy doesn't matter” when seeking to distinguish their position from those who go by the slogan “democracy matters.”Google Scholar

100 See, e.g., Michael Laver et al., Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data, 97 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 311 (2003); Slapin, Jonathan B. & Proksch, Sven-Oliver, A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts, 52 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 705 (2008); Monroe, Burt L. et al., Fightin’ Words: Lexical Feature Selection and Evaluation for Identifying the Content of Political Conflict, 16 Pol. Analysis 372 (2008); Quinn, Kevin M. et al., How to Analyze Political Attention with Minimal Assumptions and Costs, 54 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 209 (2010); Proksch, Sven-Oliver & Slapin, Jonathan B., Position Taking in European Parliament Speeches, 40 Brit. J. of Pol. Sci. 587 (2010); Proksch, Sven-Oliver & Slapin, Jonathan B., How to Avoid Pitfalls in Statistical Analysis of Political Texts: The Case of Germany, 18 German Pol. 323 (2009); Proksch, Sven-Oliver et al., Party System Dynamics in Post-War Japan: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Electoral Pledges, 30 Electoral Stud. 114 (2011); King, Gary & Lowe, Will, An Automated Information Extraction Tool for International Conflict Data with Performance as Good as Human Coders: A Rare Events Evaluation Design, 57 Int'l Org. 617 (2003); Hopkins, Daniel J. & King, Gary, A Method of Automated Nonparametric Content Analysis for Social Science, 54 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 229 (2010).Google Scholar

101 McGuire, Kevin T. & Vanberg, Georg, Mapping the Policies of the U.S. Supreme Court: Data, Opinions, and Constitutional Law, in Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (2005).Google Scholar

102 Evans, Michael et al., Recounting the Courts? Applying Automated Content Analysis to Enhance Empirical Legal Research, 4 J. of Empirical Legal Stud. 1007 (2007).Google Scholar

103 See Dyevre, Arthur, Domestic Judicial Defiance in the European Union: A Political Economic Approach, SSRN eLibrary (2013), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2295034 (last accessed July 17, 2013).Google Scholar

104 See the graph on the CONREASON website for a foretaste of the results: http://www.conreasonproject.com/automated-content-analysis-of-legal-texts.html (last visited May 25, 2013).Google Scholar

105 See Jestaedt, Matthias, Und er bewegt sie doch!: Der Wille des Verfassungsgesetzgebers in der verfassungsgerichtlichen Auslegung des Grundgesetzes, in Recht im Pluralismus 267 (Hans-Detlef Horn ed., 2003); Benesh & Czarnezki, supra note 60; Gates & Phelps, supra note 60; Howard & Segal, supra note 61.Google Scholar

106 Harold J. Spaeth & Jeffrey A. Segal, Majority Rule or Minority Will: Adherence to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court (2001).Google Scholar

107 Corley, et al., supra note 61.Google Scholar

108 Jakab, , supra note 46.Google Scholar

109 Stephen Edelston Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (1958).Google Scholar

110 Chaim Perelman & L Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (1969).Google Scholar

111 Douglas Walton, A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy (1st ed. 2003).Google Scholar

112 Bellamy, , Democracy as Public Law: The Case of Rights, supra note 7.Google Scholar

113 Waluchow, Will, Constitutional Rights and Democracy: A Reply to Professor Bellamy, 14 German L.J. 1039 (2013).Google Scholar

114 Goldoni, Marco, Constitutional Reasoning According to Political Constitutionalism. A Comment on Bellamy, 14 German L.J. 1053 (2013).Google Scholar

115 Pinelli, Cesare, Constitutional Reasoning and Political Deliberation, 14 German L.J. 1171 (2013).Google Scholar

116 Rasmussen, Hjalte & Rasmussen, Louise Nan, Activist EU-Court “Feeds” on the Existing Ban on Dissenting Opinions and Lifting it is Likely to Improve the Quality of EU Judgments. Comment on Katalin Kelemen, 14 German L.J. 1373 (2013).Google Scholar

117 Goldsworthy, , supra note 25.Google Scholar

118 Dworkin, , supra note 34.Google Scholar

119 Bustamante, Thomas, Comment on Győrfi-Dworkin, Vermeule and Győrfi on Constitutional Interpretation: Remarks on a Meta-Intepretive Disagreement, 14 German L.J. 1109 (2013).Google Scholar

120 Chein, Marcos, Law as Integrity and Law as Identity: Legal Reasoning, State Intervention and Public Policies, 14 German L.J. 1147 (2013).Google Scholar

121 Tuzet, Giovanni, Does Economic Analysis of Law Need Moral Foundations?, 14 German L.J. 1163 (2013).Google Scholar

122 See Idleman, Scott C., Prudential Theory of Judicial Candor, 73 Tex. L. Rev. 1307 (1994); Shapiro, David L., In Defense of Judicial Candor, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 731 (1986); Svetiev, Yane, On Nagel and the Strategies for Judicial Candor, Austl. Rev. Pub. Aff. (2006).Google Scholar

123 See András Jakab, A Language for the European Constitutional Discourse (forthcoming 2014); András Jakab, What Makes a Good Lawyer?, 62 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 275–87 (2007). See also Martin Shapiro, Judges As Liars, 17 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 155 (1994) (arguing that courts, unlike the other branches, face a powerful incentive to conceal their value judgments so as to make their decisions acceptable).Google Scholar

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

125 Sweet, Alec Stone & Mathews, Jud, Proportionality Balancing and Global Constitutionalism, 47 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 73 (2008).Google Scholar

126 Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1978); Alexy, Robert, Zum Begriff des Rechtsprinzips, 1 Rechtstheorie: Beiheft 59–87 (1979); Alexy, Robert, Theorie der Grundrechte (1985); Alexy, Robert, Zur Struktur der Rechtsprinzipien, in Regeln, Prinzipien und Elemente im System des Rechts 31–52 (Bernd Schilcher et al., eds., 2000).Google Scholar

127 Id. at 26.Google Scholar

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

129 Robert Alexy, Theorie, supra note 126, at 146.Google Scholar

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

131 Weinberger, Ota, Revision des traditionellen Rechtssatzkonzepte, in Regeln, Prinzipien und Elemente im System des Rechts, supra note 126, at 64 (referring to the ne bis idem principle).Google Scholar

132 Every principle (generally, a fundamental right) could then be qualified with a conditional clause, such as “and so long as no contrary principle of greater weight requires something else.” Thereby principles become all-or-nothing rules. See Manuel Atienza & Juan Ruiz Manero, A Theory of Legal Sentences 9 (1998).Google Scholar

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

134 For an argument in that sense, see András Jakab, Re-Defining Principles as ‘Important Rules'—A Critique of Robert Alexy, in On the Nature of Legal Principles, 145–59 (Martin Borowski ed., 2009) (viewing the concept as a rhetorical emphasis on certain norms).Google Scholar

135 Sartor, Giovanni, The Logic of Proportionality: Reasoning With Non-Numerical Magnitudes, 14 German L.J. 1419 (2013).Google Scholar

137 Petersen, Niels, How to Compare the Length of Lines to the Weight of Stones: Balancing and the Resolution of Value Conflicts in Constitutional Law, 14 German L.J. 1387 (2013).Google Scholar

138 Ferejohn, John, Law, Legislation and Positive Political Theory, Modern Pol. Econ. 191, 192 (Eric Hanushek & James Banks eds., 1995).Google Scholar

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