Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles: A Comparative Study

不成文的宪法规范和原则：比较研究

• 批准号: 502774604
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Florian Meinel
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Durham Law School
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/502774604?language=en
• 关键词: Unwritten; Constitutional; Norms; Principles; Comparative

No constitutional order has all its rules written down. This means that, though unwritten constitutional rules are often associated with Westminster systems, they are arguably a feature of all constitutional democracies, and a critical issue for constitutional law scholarship. At the same time, judicial recognition of unwritten constitutional norms and principles poses a challenge for the constitutional order. Unwritten norms and principles do not only create an interpretative challenge that complicates the court’s search for a formally correct decision. Their recognition and enforcement also raise concerns about the source and authority of unwritten rules. Moreover, they raise questions about the court’s legitimacy, particularly when it uses unwritten principles to overturn decisions made by democratically elected legislatures. This project examines the phenomenon of unwritten constitutionalism from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, focussing on three jurisdictions: Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The particular institutional, normative, and political features of these three countries provide a rich sample for analytical comparison. The project will expand the existing understanding of unwritten constitutionalism in three distinct ways. First, it will systematically examine unwritten constitutional norms and principles from a comparative perspective. This will provide a deeper, non-parochial understanding of the concept. Second, by understanding unwrittenness as a general issue for all constitutional orders, the project will challenge established categories of comparative constitutional studies, namely the juxtaposition of “written” (such as Germany’s) and “unwritten” (such as the UK’s) constitutions. This will allow the project to move towards a more fine-grained understanding of similarities and differences across constitutions. Third, the project’s comparative design will allow the project team to analyze the connection between judicial invocation of unwritten rules and apex courts’ authority in a more comprehensive way than with single-country studies. This project locates itself within the growing body of comparative constitutional studies research that has emerged globally over the past three decades. It will create unique opportunities for transnational and interdisciplinary knowledge production in an area of considerable legal and political significance. This project is particularly timely as questions about the scope of constitutions and the role of courts increasingly enter mainstream political debate.

没有一个宪法秩序是把所有的规则都写下来的。这意味着，尽管不成文的宪法规则通常与威斯敏斯特体系联系在一起，但它们可以说是所有宪政民主的一个特征，也是宪法学的一个关键问题。与此同时，司法承认不成文的宪法规范和原则对宪法秩序构成挑战。不成文的规范和原则不仅造成解释上的挑战，使法院寻求正式正确的裁决变得复杂。这些规则的承认和执行也引起人们对不成文规则的来源和权威的关切。此外，他们提出了关于法院的合法性的问题，特别是当它使用不成文的原则来推翻民主选举的立法机构所做的决定。本项目以加拿大、英国和德国三个国家为研究对象，从比较和跨学科的角度探讨不成文宪政的现象。这三个国家特有的制度、规范和政治特征为分析比较提供了丰富的样本。该项目将以三种不同的方式扩展对不成文宪政的现有理解。首先，从比较的角度系统地考察不成文宪法规范和原则。这将使人们对这一概念有一个更深刻的、非狭隘的理解。第二，通过理解不成文作为一个普遍的问题，所有的宪法秩序，该项目将挑战既定类别的比较宪法研究，即并列的“书面”（如德国的）和“不成文”（如英国的）宪法。这将使该项目能够更细致地了解各国宪法的相似性和差异。第三，该项目的比较设计将使项目小组能够以比单一国家研究更全面的方式分析司法援引不成文规则与最高法院权威之间的联系。该项目定位于过去三十年来在全球范围内出现的越来越多的比较宪法研究。它将在一个具有相当法律的和政治意义的领域为跨国和跨学科的知识生产创造独特的机会。这一项目特别及时，因为关于宪法范围和法院作用的问题越来越多地进入主流政治辩论。