Constitutional council

Il s’agit de comparer la production normative du Conseil constitutionnel français et du Tribunal constitutionnel fédéral, à la lumière d’un regard critique sur les approches, sociopolitique et normativiste, à l’activité de ces deux cours ainsi que d’une étude des théories qui peuvent fonder ce travail de construction jurisprudentielle.

The Constitutional Council of Iceland worked for three months on writing a new Consititution for the republic of Iceland in the summer of 2011. A new constitution has been called for many times since the founding of the republic, but the council realized a goal that politicians left of center had fought for to have a specially elected body do it, rather than a group of politicians or specialists. In the paper I will discuss the general framework created for the constitutional assembly and question the theoretical basis of the project. I argue that the main weakness is a lack of a methodological approach and a tendency to either push deliberation aside or claim that non-deliberative ways of preference ranking should determine central aspects of deliberation. I will also discuss the decision process, the choice of central issues, how the council structured its deliberations and adoption of proposals, and how it interacted with the government and main political players in the course of its deliberations. I also compare the exercise with deliberative polls and citizen assemblies and use such comparisons to analyse the success/failure of the project.

Plan :
I. Les difficultés d'une définition des critères du contrôle des engagements internationaux
A. La souveraineté de l'Etat : une notion difficile à cerner
B. Les droits fondamentaux : un champ ouvert à l'intervention du Juge constitutionnel
II. L'utilisation jurisprudentielle de ces notions pour contrôler les engagements internationaux
A. Une compétence initiale de défense de la souveraineté de l'Etat
B. Une évolution vers la défense des droits fondamentaux

Constituent Politics: An impasse?
The Icelandic Constituent Council (CC) submitted a proposal for a new constitution of the Republic of Iceland to the Icelandic Parliament (Althing) in 2011. Since then the Parliament has been struggling to determine what to do with the proposed bill. According to the current constitution, any amendments must be approved by two different parliaments, making it necessary to pass the constitutional bill before and after a general election. A popular demand for a referendum on the proposal, however, has made it unlikely that the parliament will vote on the proposal without first submitting it to a national referendum. Opinions about what to do are widely divergent ranging from a full dismissal on one side of the political spectrum to full support. Some politicians and CC members have expressed the opinion that no changes to the proposal should be considered or that any changes made must have the approval of CC members. The talk will explore whether the politics of constitution making have brought the whole project to a standstill and whether anything can be learned from the process.