The foundations and traditions of constitutional amendment

417 Pages·2017·5.868 MB·English

by  Albert, Richard D., Fotiadou, Alkmene, Kontiadēs, Xenophōn I.

THE FOUNDATIONS AND TRADITIONS
OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
There is growing interest in constitutional amendment from a comparative
perspective. Comparative constitutional amendment is the study of how constitu-
tions change through formal and informal means, including alteration, revision,
evolution, interpretation, replacement and revolution. The field invites scholars to
draw insights about constitutional change across borders and cultures, to uncover
the motivations behind constitutional change, to theorise best practices, and to
identify the theoretical underpinnings of constitutional change.
This volume is designed to guide the emergence of comparative constitutional
amendment as a distinct field of study in public law. Much of the recent scholarship
in the field has been written by the scholars assembled in this volume. This book, like
the field it hopes to shape, is not comparative alone; it is also doctrinal, historical
and theoretical, and therefore offers a multiplicity of perspectives on a subject about
which much remains to be written.
This book aspires to be the first to cover comprehensively the new dimensions of
the study of constitutional amendment, and will become a reference point for all
scholars working on the subject. The volume covers all the topics where innovative
work is being done, such as the notion of the people, the trend of empirical
quantitative approaches to constitutional change, unamendability, sunrise clauses,
constitutional referenda, the conventional divide between constituent and con-
stituted powers, among other important subjects. It creates a dialogue that cuts
through these innovative conceptualisations and highlights scholarly disagreement
and, in so doing, puts ideas to the test. The volume therefore captures the fierce
ongoing debates on the relevant topics, it reveals the current trends and contested
issues, and it offers a variety of a rguments elaborated by prominent experts in the
field. It will open the way for further dialogue.
Volume 17 in the series Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law
Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law
Recent titles in this series:
Constitutionalising Secession
David Haljan
Parliaments and Human Rights
Redressing the Democratic Deficit
Edited by Murray Hunt, Hayley Hooper and Paul Yowell
The Right to Freedom of Assembly
A Comparative Study
Orsolya Salát
An Inquiry into the Existence of Global Values
Through the Lens of Comparative Constitutional Law
Edited by Dennis Davis, Alan Richter and Cheryl Saunders
The Scope and Intensity of Substantive Review
Traversing Taggart’s Rainbow
Edited by Hanna Wilberg and Mark Elliott
Entick v Carrington
250 Years of the Rule of Law
Edited by Adam Tomkins and Paul Scott
Administrative Law and Judicial Deference
Matthew Lewans
Soft Law and Public Authorities
Remedies and Reform
Greg Weeks
Legitimate Expectations in the Common Law World
Edited by Matthew Groves and Greg Weeks
The Dynamics of Exclusionary Constitutionalism
Mazen Masri
Constitutional Courts, Gay Rights and Sexual Orientation Equality
Angioletta Sperti
Principled Reasoning in Human Rights Adjudication
Se-Shauna Wheatle
Human Rights and Judicial Review in Australia and Canada
Janina Boughey
The Foundations and Traditions
of Constitutional Amendment
Edited by
Richard Albert, Xenophon Contiades
and Alkmene Fotiadou
OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON
2017
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First published 2017
© Richard Albert, Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou 2017
Richard Albert, Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou have asserted their right under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-50990-825-7
ePDF: 978-1-50990-827-1
ePub: 978-1-50990-826-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Albert, Richard D., editor. | Contiades, Xenophon I., editor. | Fotiadou, Alkmene, editor.
Title: The foundations and traditions of constitutional amendment / edited by Richard Albert,
Xenophon Contiades, and Alkmene Fotiadou.
Description: Oxford [UK] ; Portland, Oregon : Hart Publishing, 2017. | Series: Hart studies in
comparative public law ; v. 17 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017002144 (print) | LCCN 2017003153 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509908257
(hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781509908264 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Constitutional amendments. | Constitutional law. | Law reform.
Classification: LCC K3168 .F68 2017 (print) | LCC K3168 (ebook) | DDC 342.03—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017002144
Typeset by Compuscript Ltd, Shannon
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Acknowledgements
The seeds for this volume were planted in July 2014, as the three of us were
exchanging emails about our shared scholarly interest in constitutional amendment.
We had been longing for a forum to workshop our papers with colleagues in the
field, and so we decided to convene a roundtable on comparative constitutional
amendment in Chestnut Hill at Boston College.
Our Workshop on Comparative Constitutional Amendment was held on 15 May
2015. We spent the entire day discussing and critiquing papers prepared specifi-
cally for the Workshop, and we continued our conversation over a dinner that
stretched well into the night. We were hosted with great warmth and generosity by
the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, directed by Professor
Vlad Perju of Boston College Law School. We also benefited from our partnership
with the Research Group on Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change in the
International Association of Constitutional Law. We thank them for supporting our
Workshop.
We thank our friends at Hart Publishing—Bill Asquith, Francesca Sancarlo, Anne
Flegel and Claire Banyard—for the opportunity to share the fruits of our Workshop
in this published form.
We reserve our biggest thanks for the contributors to this volume. We are inspired
by their ideas, we are motivated by their hard work, and we are grateful for their
friendship. We look forward to continuing the conversation we have begun in this
volume, both with them and with our readers.
The Editors
vi
Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................v
Notes on Contributors .........................................................................................xv
Introduction: The State of the Art in Constitutional Amendment ...........................1
Richard Albert
I. Defining the Field ....................................................................................3
II. The Architecture of Constitutional Amendment Rules ............................4
A. Unamendability ...............................................................................7
B. The Operation of Constitutional Amendment ..................................8
C. Three Challenges in the Study of Constitutional Change ...............11
III. Amendment as Constitution ..................................................................12
A. Perspectives on Constitutional Amendment ...................................14
B. The Future of Constitutional Amendment .....................................19
Part I: The Foundations of Constitutional Amendment
1. Amendment Power, Constituent Power, and Popular Sovereignty:
Linking Unamendability and Amendment Procedures....................................23
Yaniv Roznai
I. Introduction ..........................................................................................24
II. Unamendability and Constituent Power ................................................24
A. A Three-Track Democracy in a Nutshell ........................................24
B. Primary Constituent Power and Popular Sovereignty .....................26
III. The Constitutionalisation of Primary
Constituent Power .................................................................................31
A. The Fallacy of Prescribed Constitution-Making Procedures ...........31
B. We The ‘Limited’ People? ...............................................................33
IV. The Spectrum of Constitutional Amendment Powers ............................37
A. Demanding and Facile Amendment Powers ...................................37
B. Linking Amendment Procedure and Unamendability .....................41
C. The Spectrum of Amendment Powers and Judicial
Review of Amendments .................................................................46
V. Conclusion ............................................................................................48
2. Constitutional Theory and Cognitive Estrangement: Beyond
Revolutions, Amendments and Constitutional Moments ...............................51
Zoran Oklopcic
I. Introduction: The Person of ‘The People’ and
A Three-Fold Cognitive Estrangement ...................................................51
II. Beyond ‘The People’: New Tropes, Old Anxieties ..................................54
viii Contents
III. Three Forms of Estrangement-prevention:
Holmes, Pettit, Dworkin ......................................................................56
IV. Tertium Datur: Mapping Constitutional Change
Between the Revolution and the Amendment .......................................59
V. Towards a Different Familiarity: ‘The People’,
The Paradox and The Sacrifice .............................................................69
3. Constraints on Constitutional Amendment Powers........................................73
Oran Doyle
I. Introduction .........................................................................................73
II. A Doctrine of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments ...............74
A. Unconstitutional Amendments: Positive,
Moral and Conceptual Claims ......................................................74
B. Morally Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments ................75
C. Conceptually Unconstitutional Constitutional
Amendments ................................................................................77
D. A Problematic Rubric ...................................................................80
III. Constraint and Powers of Constitutional Change ................................81
IV. The Types of Constraint on Constitutional
Amendment Powers .............................................................................83
A. Process or Content .......................................................................83
B. Rule or Standard ..........................................................................84
C. Legislator or Court .......................................................................84
D. Values Served by Constraint: Foundational,
Majoritarian, or Counter-Majoritarian .........................................86
V. Distribution of Power and the Justification of Constraint ....................87
VI. Justification of Constraints on Constitutional
Amendment Powers .............................................................................89
A. Parameters of Justification ............................................................89
B. Illustrative Schema of Constraints ................................................89
C. Contextual Factors .......................................................................91
D. Majoritarian Constraints ..............................................................92
E. Foundational Constraints .............................................................94
F. Counter-Majoritarian Constraints ................................................94
VII. Conclusion ...........................................................................................95
4. Comment on Doyle’s Constraints on Constitutional
Amendment Powers .......................................................................................97
Mark Tushnet
5. Constituting the Amendment Power: A Framework
for Comparative Amendment Law...............................................................105
Thomaz Pereira
I. Introduction .......................................................................................105
A. Sieyès’ Two Different Problems ..................................................107
i. Constituting the Constituent Power ....................................108
Contents ix
ii. Limiting the Constituent Power ..........................................109
iii. Lessons from Failure and Success .......................................111
B. Constituting the Amendment Power ...........................................113
i. People Who? ......................................................................115
ii. People When? .....................................................................117
a. ‘The People’ has Left the House ..................................117
b. ‘We’ are Always Open .................................................118
c. Follow the Yellow Brick Road .....................................119
II. Conclusion .........................................................................................120
6. Sieyès: The Spirit of Constitutional Democracy? ..........................................121
Luisa Fernanda García López
I. Introduction .......................................................................................121
II. Towards a Representative Democracy ................................................124
A. From the Tiers État to the National
Constituent Assembly .................................................................125
B. From Citizenship to Constituent Power:
The Foundation of Political Representation ................................127
III. Towards a Constitutional Democracy ................................................129
A. The Sovereign People ..................................................................130
B. The Sovereign Constitution ........................................................131
IV. Conclusion .........................................................................................133
7. Revolutionary Reform in Venezuela: Electoral Rules and
Historical Narratives in the Creation of the 1999 Constitution ...................137
Joshua Braver
I. Introduction .......................................................................................137
II. Carl Schmitt’s Unfortunate Victory over Hannah Arendt
in the Analysis of Popular Constitution-Making ................................139
III. Hannah Arendt’s Revolutionary Reform ............................................141
A. The Dangerous Freedom of the People .......................................141
B. Renewal and Revolutionary Reform ...........................................143
C. Extrapolating from Arendt: Unconventional Adaptation ............144
IV. Hugo Chávez’s Radical and Original Constituent Power ...................145
V. The Turning Point: The Electoral Rules for the
Constituent Assembly ........................................................................148
A. The Difficulty of Fighting Against the Referendum .....................149
B. Ex-Ante Control of the Constituent Assembly
through Electoral Rules ..............................................................150
VI. Radical Breaks and Exclusionary Mandates .......................................151
A. Liberal Democracy’s Potential for Revolutionary Reform ...........152
B. First Past the Post: The Revolutionary Mandate
to Destroy the Past .....................................................................153
C. Proportional Representation: Inclusion and
the Pluralised People ...................................................................154
VII. Conclusion .........................................................................................156