The Law/Politics Distinction, the French Conseil Constitutionnel, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Authors

Michael H. Davis, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1986

Publication Title

American Journal of Comparative Law

Keywords

Conseil constitutionnel, French law, comparative law, judiciary

Abstract

A dispute burns across the landscape of French constitutional law regarding the juridical nature of the French constitutional "Supreme Court", the Conseil constitutionnel: is it a court? Both French and American scholars have claimed that, despite superficial similarities between the U.S. Supreme Court and the French Conseil constitutionnel, the American system of judicial review "can have no counterpart in the French system", that French legal and political theory is inconstistent with an effective supreme court, that there is "no possibility" that the French and American systems could surmount this "major difference", and that the Conseil is simply not a "true court". It follows that the continuing debate over the Conseil's nature has three main sources: first, factual confusion; secondly, conceptual confusion, and thirdly, the political evolution and strategies of the French Republic.

Repository Citation

Michael Henry Davis, The Law/Politics Distinction, the French Conseil Constitutionnel, and the U.S. Supreme Court, 34 American Journal of Comparative Law 45 (1986)

Volume

34