JUDICIAL REVIEW. COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ESSAYS, LECTURES AND COURSES (1985-2011)

This book deals with Judicial Review, as the power of judges to control the constitutionality of State acts, particularly of Legislation, which not only is the most important subject of contemporary constitutional law, but also the most distinctive feature of all democratic constitutional systems. Such power is the consequence of the consolidation in contemporary constitutionalism of three fundamental principles of law: first, the existence of a written constitution or of a fundamental law, conceived as a superior law with clear supremacy over all other statutes; second, the "rigid" character of such constitution, which implies that the amendments or reforms that may be introduced can only be put into practice by means of a particular and special constituent process, preventing the ordinary legislator from doing so; and third, the establishment in that same written and rigid constitution or fundamental law, of the judicial means for guaranteeing its supremacy, over all other state...