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Proportionality, Balancing, and the Cult of Constitutional Rights Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

Grégoire C. N. Webber
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Extract

Constitutional rights’ scholarship is anchored in the cult of proportionality and balancing. Despite the absence of reference to proportionality or balancing in most State constitutions or international conventions, scholars and judges alike have embraced a vocabulary of proportion, cost, weight, and balance. Drawing on the work of German scholar Robert Alexy and Canadian scholar David Beatty, this essay attempts to illustrate how the principle of proportionality conceals more than it reveals in rights-reasoning. By challenging the contemporary cult of practical reasoning over rights, the essay advocates a turn away from a methodology and vocabulary of proportionality in favour of a more direct struggle with political-moral reasoning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 179 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2010

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References

I wish to thank John Finnis, Robert Alexy and the participants of his Doktorandenkolloquium at Christian-Albrechts University, François Chevrette, Mattias Kumm, Luc B. Tremblay, Graham Gee, Kate Hofmeyr, Vicki Jackson, Matthias Klatt, Kai Möller, Owen Rees, the participants of the VIIth World Congress of Constitutional Law in Athens, and the participants of the Oxford Jurisprudence Discussion Group for comments on previous drafts. Part II of this article draws on a chapter from my book, The Negotiable Constitution: On the Limitation of Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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