Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles: A Comparative Study

任何宪法秩序都不会把所有规则都写下来。这意味着，尽管不成文的宪法规则经常与威斯敏斯特制度联系在一起，但它们可以说是所有宪政民主国家的一个特征，也是宪法法学研究的一个关键问题。与此同时，司法承认不成文的宪法规范和原则对宪法秩序提出了挑战。不成文的规范和原则不仅造成解释性挑战，使法院寻求正式正确裁决的工作复杂化。它们的承认和执行也引发了人们对不成文规则的来源和权威的担忧。此外，他们对最高法院的合法性提出了质疑，特别是当它使用不成文的原则推翻民主选举产生的立法机构所作的决定时。本项目从比较和跨学科的角度研究不成文宪政现象，重点关注三个司法管辖区：加拿大、联合王国和德国。这三个国家独特的体制、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大对不成文宪政的现有理解。首先，它将从比较的角度系统地审查不成文的宪法规范和原则。这将提供对这一概念的更深层次、非狭隘的理解。其次，通过将不成文性理解为所有宪法秩序的一般问题，该项目将挑战比较宪法研究的既定类别，即“成文”(如德国的)和“不成文的”(如英国的)宪法的并列。这将使该项目能够更精细地了解不同宪法的相似和不同之处。第三，项目的比较设计将使项目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。该项目位于过去三十年来全球涌现的日益增长的比较宪法研究机构中。它将在一个具有相当重要法律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。随着有关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，这一项目尤其及时。

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.