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Some Phases of the Theory and Practice of Judicial Review of Legislation in Foreign Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Charles Grove Haines
Charles Grove Haines*
Affiliation:
University of Californiaat Los Angeles
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Extract

It is no longer customary to the extent that it formerly was to maintain that judicial review of legislation and the consequent annulment of laws is an exclusively American political practice. With the courts of at least a score of countries passing on the validity of legislative acts, and occasionally refusing to apply them in concrete cases, the American method of guarding constitutions, characterized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a new political phenomenon, has now an extensive application among the countries operating under written fundamental laws.

Interesting developments are taking place with respect to judicial review of legislation in foreign countries. Austria and Czechoslovakia have established special constitutional courts with authority to determine whether acts are in accord with their constitutions. Germany is in the process of adopting judicial review of acts of the national government as implied in the provisions of the new constitution. According to certain jurists, French courts have taken the first steps to establish themselves as the special interpreters and guardians of the French constitution. Though the dominant opinion of French lawyers and statesmen is opposed to judicial review as a feature of the French system of government, there is a growing sentiment in favor of the acceptance of the principle, as a necessary means of rendering more effective the provisions of the constitution and of protecting individual rights as guaranteed in the Declaration of Rights. The Irish Free State has followed the lead of Canada and Australia in placing the guardianship of its new constitution in the courts. In adopting a new constitution, Chile appears to have taken preliminary steps to change a system of parliamentary supremacy to a modified régime of judicial supremacy. There is considerable public discussion in Switzerland of the possibility of accepting the principle of review of the acts of the Federal Assembly.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , August 1930 , pp. 583 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1930

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References

1 See Eisenmann, Charles, La justice constitutionnelle et la haute cour constitutionnelle d'autriche (Paris, 1928)Google Scholar, and Weyr, Frantisek, “Le tribunal constitutionnel de la république tchécoslovaque,” Bulletin de droit tchécoslovaque (1925–1926), vol. 1, pp. 129, 132Google Scholar.

2 See Friedrich, Carl J., “The Issue of Judicial Review in Germany,” 43 Polit. Science Quar. (June, 1928) 188CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grau, Richard, “Zum Gesetzentwurf über die Prüfung der Verfassungsmäsaigkeit von Reichsgesetzen und Reichsverordnungen,” Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts, N. F. II, 287Google Scholar; and Marx, Fritz Morstein, Variationen über richterliche Zuständigkeit sur Prüfung der Rechtmässigkeit des Gesetzes (Berlin, 1927)Google Scholar. Marx gives a summary of the opinions of the opposing factions relative to judicial review in Germany.

3 M. Hauriou claims that the Tribunal of Conflicts in a decision of July 30, 1873, and the Council of State in two decisions, August 7, 1909, and March 1, 1912, recognized the power of verifying the constitutionality of laws. Précis de droit constitutionnel (2nd. ed., Paris, 1929), 282 ffGoogle Scholar. For a different interpretation, see Jèze, Gaston, “Le contrôle juridictionnelle des lois,” 41 Revue du Droit Public (1924) 409Google Scholar, and Barthélemy, Joseph, Traité élémentaire de droit constitutionnel (Paris, 1926)Google Scholar. Cf. also Leblanc, Jacques, Du pouvoir des tribunaux d'apprécier en France la constitutionnalité des lois. Thesis (Paris, 1924).Google Scholar

4 Constitution (1922), arts. 65, 66.

5 Constitution (1925), art. 86.

6 Cf. Annuaire de l'Institut International de Droit Public (1929), 197Google Scholar.

7 See Alibert, Raphaël, Le contrôle juridictionnel de l'administration au moyen du recours pour excès de pauvoir (Paris, 1926)Google Scholar.

8 Proal, Louis, “Le rôle du pouvoir judiciare dans les républiques.” 56 Revue Politique et Parlementaire (June, 1908) 558Google Scholar; Jèze, Gaston, “Notions sur le contrôles des delibérations des assemblées deliberantes,” 53 Revue Générale d'Administration (May-Aug., 1895) 401Google Scholar, and 54 Revue Générale d'Administration 31, 154. Numerous doctors' dissertations accept and defend this method of reasoning.

9 Schiller, F. C. S., Formal Logic: A Scientific and Social Problem (London, 1912), 126Google Scholar.

10 Much of the discussion of judicial review of legislation in Latin American countries follows in detail the arguments or analyses found in the standard American treatises.

11 The primary objection in France to acceptance of the principle of judicial review of legislative acts is, according to Jean Signorel, the French version of the theory of the separation of powers. “Le contrôle du pouvoir législatif,” 40 Revue Politique et Parlementaire (1904) 77, 519, 525Google Scholar. Says he: “Such a doctrine [judicial review of legislation] is contrary not only to our separation of powers but also to the history of our institutions, our texts, and the spirit of our legislation.” Cf. Larnaude, F., “L'inconstitutionnalité des lois et le droit public français,” 126 Revue Politique et Parlementaire (Jan.-Mar., 1926) 181Google Scholar.

12 “The decisive question is this. From what class should be selected the men who exercise a supreme control in a country, and what should be their social training? Ought they to be exclusively jurists, or men engaged in political life? For there is a marked difference between the two classes. The traditionalist spirit is much more accentuated with the former than with the latter. We observe, then, in last analysis, a conflict between two great tendencies, which are characteristic of human actions;—on the one hand, a tendency which is conservative and traditionalist, and on the other hand, I would not call it a progressive tendency (for the question as to what is progress is not exactly determined), but a tendency to change, to seek the new.” To the former class, it is observed, belong the judges, to the latter, legislators. LeFur, Louis, 29 Revue du Droit Public (1922) 313, 314Google Scholar.

13 Annuaire de l'Institut International de Droit Public (1929) 94Google Scholar, and “La garantie juridictionnelle de la constitution,” 45 Revue du Droit Public (1928) 197 ffGoogle Scholar.

14 The decision of a judge who acts as a law-maker “will always appear individual, arbitrary, and partial; it will not have the authority of law.” Charmont, J., La renaissance du droit naturel (Montpelier, 1910), 189Google Scholar.

15 “Étude sur les garanties judiciaries, qui existent dans certains pays, au profit des particuliers contre les actes du pouvoir législatif,” 31 Bulletin de la Société de Legislation comparée (Feb., 1902) 175Google Scholar.

16 “Le contrôl du pouvoir législatif,” 40 Revue Politique et Parlementaire (1904) 534–536Google Scholar.

17 For limitations of this distinction, see Kelsen, Hans, “La garantie juridictionnelle de la constitution,” Annuaire de l'Institut International le Droit Public (Paris, 1929), 65 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Hauriou, Maurice, Précis de droit constitutionnel (2nd ed., Paris, 1928), 283Google Scholar. As to a failure to observe formal requirements which result solely from the violation of the interior regulations of the Chambers, the Court of Cassation maintains that the irregularity is covered by the promulgation of a law, and that, moreover, since the Chambers are sovereign, they can modify the procedure of their deliberations.” ibid., 283, and Cass. Crim. 22, Oct., 1903. See Jèze, Gaston, in 21 Revue du Droit Publio (1904) 17Google Scholar; Laurent, , Principes de droit civil, I, sec. 3Google Scholar; Laferrière, , Traité de la juridiction administrative et des recours contentieux (2nd ed., Paris, 1896), II, 8, 9Google Scholar; ibid., “Le contrôl juridictionnel des lois,” 41 Revue du Droit Public (1924) 422 ff.

19 Anschütz, Gerhard, Die verfassung des deutschen Reichs vom 11 August 1919. Ein Kommentar für Wissenschaft und Praxis (Berlin, 1926), 216 ffGoogle Scholar.

20 31 Bulletin de la Société de Législation comparée (1901-2), 240.

21 Hauriou, , Précis de droit constitutionnel (2nd ed., Paris, 1928), 268 ffGoogle Scholar.

22 Hauriou, , Précis élémentaire de droit constitutionnel (Paris, 1925), 82, 83Google Scholar. Hauriou asserts: “It is an error to believe that the superlegalité constitutionnelle comprehends only that which is written in the constitution; it comprehends equally other things, as for example, all the fundamental principles on which governments are founded. …. These principles constitute a sort of légitimité constitutionnelle, which has force over and above the written constitution.”

23 Hauriou, op. cit., 88.

24 Traité de droit constitutionnel (Paris, 1923), vol. 3, pp. 678, 679Google Scholar.

25 Mattern, Johannes, Principles of the Constitutional Jurisprudence of the German Republio (Baltimore, 1928), 257 ffGoogle Scholar. According to Kelsen, the chief objection to the l'exception d'inconstitutionnalité, or the American plan of judicial review, is the uncertainty and the insecurity of the law which necessarily results from such a practice. Annuaire, op. cit., 199.

26 “Our republic cannot continue to exist if the power of the judiciary, as compared with the legislative and executive powers, is not given a stronger position and greater jurisdiction than heretofore. The foundations in this respect have been laid by the constitution of Weimar; they need only be developed. But the fact that our Parliament, year after year, enacts laws which change the constitution, without even realizing the changes thereby enacted, and that the executive resorts to emergency measures, for which in many cases there is no foundation in the constitution, presents a condition which should not be allowed to continue further.” “German Chief Justice [Walter Simons] on U. S. Constitution,” 12 Amer. Bar Assoc. Jour. (June, 1926) 379Google Scholar.

27 For a discussion of bills to regulate judicial review in Germany, see Grau, , “Zum Gesetzenwurf über die Prüfung der Verfassungsmässigkeit von Reichsgesetzen und Reichsverordnungen,” 11 Archiv des Öffentlichen Rechts, N. F. 287Google Scholar.

28 See Wigg v. Attorney-General of Irish Free State (1927), A. C. 674, and act of the Irish Parliament, No. 11, 1926.

29 Taking advantage of a mistake made by the Privy Council in Cotton v. King (1914), 1 A. C. 176, Quebec passed an act declaring that the provisions pronounced void by the Privy Council as indirect taxation had been and were in the future to be considered direct taxation, and hence valid under Sec. 92 of the British North America Act. See 4 and 5 Geo V. C. 11, and Keith, A. B., Imperial Unity and the Dominions, 375Google Scholar.

30 See, “Law and Custom in the Canadian Constitution,” The Round Table, No. 77 (Dec., 1929), 143Google Scholar.

31 See comments of Simons, Walter in “German Chief Justice on U. S. Constitution,” 12 Amer. Bar Assoc. Journal (June, 1926) 378Google Scholar. “An act which violates the constitution has no power and can, of course, neither build up nor tear down. It can neither create new rights nor destroy existing ones. It is an empty legislative declaration without force or vitality. …. As applied to this case, it began and ended as a futile attempt by the legislature to bring about a change in the law which a previous legislature had enacted.” Justice Butler, in Frost v. Corporation Commission, 278 U.S. 515 (1929). Constitutional justice appears, more distinctly than other branches of law, the product of jurisprudence. The court, in reality, completes and interprets the constitution more than it applies it, in the sense that one generally attaches to this word. It does not say what the law is, it makes it. But an essential characteristic distinguishes the constitutional legislature: it cannot give an authentic and obligatory interpretation of the constitution, and it cannot decide abstractly; it can only decide concrete cases. It cannot determine general norms, but an individual, or rather a concrete, norm. Eisenmann, op. cit., 216.

32 “The system of control by the judges over the intrinsic constitutionality of laws would be very dangerous in France if the theory developed by certain modern authors concerning the constitutional character of a great number of general principles, more or less vague, were adopted. There is no law, social, fiscal, academic, or religious, which could not be disapproved by subtle judges on the ground that it violates a fundamental principle of French law [droit].” Jéze, Gaston, “Le contrôle juridictionnel des lois,” 41 Revue du, Droit Public (1924) 421Google Scholar.

33 Throughout the arguments favoring judicial review in foreign countries there is a distrust of legislatures which was characteristic of the period when the American doctrine was in process of adoption.

34 See especially Lambert, Edouard, Le gouvernment des juges et la lutte contre la législation sociale aux États-Unis (Paris, 1921)Google Scholar.

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