Prague Constitutional Seminar Series: Sebastián R. Molina

The Department of Constitutional Law invites you to a seminar in the newly launched Prague Constitutional Seminar Series:

Sebastián Reyes Molina (Maastricht University) will present his working draft, A Matter of Pedigree: Legal Interpretation and Judicial Review.

If you are interested in receiving the presented text, please enter your email here.

The seminar will take place on Thursday, March 6, at 16:30 in Room 38.

The event will be held in English.

Everyone is warmly welcome!

Bio

Sebastián Reyes Molina is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Law at Maastricht University. He got his PhD in Philosophy at Uppsala University (2020). His research focus on evidence law, legal interpretation, constitutional theory, and meta ethics.

Anotace

Countermajoritarianism is the view that judicial review is antidemocratic because it allows an unelected and unaccountable minority (judges) to overrule laws that represent the will of the majority. The core claim of this view stresses the clash between organs with the democratic and undemocratic pedigree. I call this clash, the pedigree problem of judicial review.

Against countermajoritarianism, I argue that the pedigree problem does not affect some forms of judicial review. Specifically, the judicial review that declares a norm inapplicable in a specific case due to the unconstitutional effects that this application brings about. Countermajoritarianism fails when objecting to the inapplicability model because the organs involved in judicial review – the constitutional court and the judge - have the same pedigree, i.e., non-democratic. In order to justify this claim, I draw insights from legal interpretation literature, specifically, the norm formulation and norm distinction.