Event

Lecture What is political about constitutional review?

  • Conférencier  Professor Dr. Dr. Dieter Grimm

  • Lieu

    Université du Luxembourg Faculté de droit, d'Economie et de Finance Bâtiment Weicker – Room B001 Ground floor 4 Rue Alphonse Weicker, L-2721 Luxembourg

    LU

  • Thème(s)
    Droit

Abstract

The question whether constitutional courts are legal or political institutions and whether judicial review is a legal or a political activity is by no means new. But it is always posed anew, and the answer is of constant importance because it predetermines our attitude vis-à-vis constitutional adjudication. Should we give it up, as increasingly demanded in the US, or should we keep it? In the lecture, I will try to overcome the usual either-or-approach and suggest a more differentiated view by asking to what extent judicial review is political and to what extent it is legal and thereby to avoid an over-idealistic answer as it is often given by constitutional judges and an over-realistic one as frequently given in Anglo-Saxon literature.

Biography

Dieter Grimm was a Justice of the German Federal Constitutional Court from 1987 to 1999. He was Professor in Comparative Constitutional Law at the Humboldt University in Berlin from 2000 to 2007, as well as Rector of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin from 2001 to 2007. He is the author of several monographs, the most recent of which are Verfassungsgerichtbarkeit (2021) and Die Historiker und die Verfassung.

Ein Beitrag zur Wirkungsgeschichte des Grundgesetzes (2022).