Abstract
The legitimacy of constitutional and supreme courts increasingly requires an effort, by the courts themselves, to establish a channel for direct communication with the public. This paper briefly analyses the practices that some courts (the Supreme Courts of the United Kingdom and the United States, the French Constitutional Council, the German, Italian and Spanish Constitutional Courts) have developed for this purpose, highlighting the growing importance of new instruments that are allowing the courts to bypass the intermediation of traditional information media. In this respect, the Internet has played a key role; however, in the near future, the main instrument is most likely to be social media.
Paolo Passaglia is Full Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Pisa; pro-tempore Scientific Coordinator of the Comparative Law Area of the Research Department, Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The principle was strengthened when it was enshrined in the Constitution: see the Constitution of 1791, Title III, Chapter V, Article 3 of which reads as follows: “les tribunaux ne peuvent s’immiscer dans l’exercice du pouvoir législatif ou suspendre l’exécution des lois”. Borrowing from Montesquieu’s words, this downgraded “la puissance de juger, si terrible parmi les hommes” to a function “pour ainsi dire, invisible et nulle” (de Secondat de Montesquieu (1748), Livre XI, Chapitre VI).
- 3.
Reference is made to the “Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty” evoked by Bickel (1962), p. 16 ff.
- 4.
See Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, at 638 (1943).
- 5.
Speech delivered at the Chamber of Commerce, Elmira, New York, 3 May 1907 (published in Addresses and Papers of Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, 1906–1908, New York, 1908, 139), when Evans was State Governor. Shortly after (in 1910), he was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a position he maintained until 1916. He then returned to the Supreme Court in 1930, as Chief Justice.
- 6.
This argument was made during the session of 13 October 1981, in reply to the centre-right opposition’s protests against the law on nationalization that was to be passed.
- 7.
Favoreu (1988).
- 8.
Moïsi (2008), p. 5.
- 9.
McLuhan (1994).
- 10.
de Secondat de Montesquieu (1748), Livre XI, Chapitre VI.
- 11.
Popper (2002), p. 29.
- 12.
Communiqué du Président du 10 mai 2016, http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/actualites/2016/communique-du-president-du-10-mai-2016.147341.html.
- 13.
- 14.
The reform of the style of drafting the judgments of the Constitutional Council was also analysed by one of its members: see Belloubet (2017), p. 7 ff.
- 15.
See https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/decisions: for each judgment, its text and the official comment is provided and freely downloadable.
- 16.
This warning is included in all judgments of the Supreme Court, together with a reference to the judgment in the case U.S. v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 US 321, 337 (1906), in which the Court addressed the issue of differences between the syllabus and the judgment. The Court clarified that the text drafted by the Reporter of Decisions is not official: the syllabus “gives his understanding of the decision”, and nothing more.
- 17.
This drawback could not be eliminated by conferring official and authoritative character upon the syllabus. This occurs, for instance, with the summaries of the judgments of the Canadian Supreme Court, which are not separated from judgments, and must therefore be considered as a part of it (in fact, the syntheses are also sent for official translation). The authoritative nature of the synthesis could avoid interpretations and expectations arising from non-official texts, devoid of any legal bases; nevertheless, precisely this authoritative nature would exacerbate the problems deriving from any conflict there may be between the synthesis and the actual judgment, because, in this case it would be very difficult to identify objective criteria to solve the conflict.
- 18.
The peculiarities of the press releases issued by the Italian Constitutional Court are analysed by Gragnani (2013), p. 531 ff.
- 19.
- 20.
It should be noted that the press conference, in addition to being open to journalists, is also broadcasted live on television. The audience that the event manages to attract, however, is rather limited, also because the conference is held in the morning.
- 21.
The Bulletin is freely available at https://www.venice.coe.int/WebForms/pages/?p=02_02_Bulletins.
References
Baranger, D. (2012). Sur la manière française de rendre la justice constitutionnelle. Motivation et raisons politiques dans la jurisprudence du Conseil constitutionnel. Jus Politicum, 7, 2012, Retrieved April 3, 2019, from http://juspoliticum.com/article/Sur-la-maniere-francaise-de-rendre-la-justice-constitutionnelle-478.html
Belloubet, N. (2017). La motivation des décisions du Conseil constitutionnel: justifier et réformer. Les Nouveaux Cahiers du Conseil constitutionnel, 55/56, 7.
Bickel, A. M. (1962). The least dangerous branch. The supreme court at the bar of politics. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Co.
Butturini, D., & Nicolini, M. (Eds.). (2017). Giurisdizione costituzionale e potere democraticamente legittimato. Bologna: Bononia University Press.
Calamo Specchia, M. (Ed.). (2011). Le Corti Costituzionali. Composizione, Indipendenza, Legittimazione. Turin: Giappichelli.
Canivet, G. (2013). La motivation des décisions du Conseil constitutionnel. In S. Caudal (Ed.), La motivation en droit public (p. 236). Paris: Dalloz.
Costanzo, P. (2016). La Corte costituzionale come ‘nodo’ della Rete. In Scritti in onore di Gaetano Silvestri (Vol. I, p. 667). Turin: Giappichelli.
de Secondat de Montesquieu, C. (1748). De l’esprit des lois. Geneva.
Favoreu, L. (1988). La politique saisie par le droit. Alternances, cohabitation et Conseil constitutionnel. Paris: Economica.
Favoreu, L. (1994). La légitimité du juge constitutionnel. Revue internationale de droit comparé, 557.
Garlicki, L. (2009). La légitimité du contrôle de constitutionnalité: problèmes anciens c/ développements récents. Revue française de droit constitutionnel, 227.
Gragnani, A. (2013). Comunicati-stampa del Palazzo della Consulta anziché provvedimenti cautelari della Corte costituzionale?. Giurisprudenza costituzionale, 531.
Guillaume, M. (2012). La motivation des décisions du Conseil constitutionnel. Annuaire international de Justice constitutionnelle, 49.
McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media: The extensions of man (1964). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mezzetti, L. (2010). Teorie della giustizia costituzionale e legittimazione degli organi di giustizia costituzionale. Estudios Constitucionales, 307.
Moïsi, D. (2008). La géopolitique de l’émotion: Comment les cultures de peur, d’humiliation et d’espoir façonnent le monde. Paris: Flammarion.
Passaglia, P. (2017). Qualche osservazione sulla comunicazione pubblica della Corte costituzionale. In G. L. Conti & P. Milazzo (Eds.), Studi pisani sul Parlamento, VII. La crisi del Parlamento nelle regole sulla sua percezione (p. 113). Pisa: Pisa University Press.
Popper, K. (2002). Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976). New York: Routledge.
Sadurski, W. (2005). Rights before courts. Dordrecht: Springer.
Sunstein, C. R. (1997). Introduction – The legitimacy of constitutional courts: Notes on theory and practice feature: Questioning constitutional justice: Introduction. East European Constitutional Review, 6, 61.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Passaglia, P. (2019). Institutional Communication as a Means to Strengthen the Legitimacy of Constitutional Courts. In: Pinto de Albuquerque, P., Wojtyczek, K. (eds) Judicial Power in a Globalized World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20744-1_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20744-1_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20743-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20744-1
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)