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• The Judicial Protection of the Basic Structure of the Constitution: the Practice of Judicial Review of Constitutional Amendments in India

  132-148

  Virág Zsugyó

  Views:

  152

  One of the rare but more prominent cases of judicial protection of the existing constitution is the revision of constitutional amendments. From among courts that review amendments, this study presents India’s Supreme Court’s practice, which is regarded as a model. India’s constitution does not contain any unamendable provisions or explicit authorization for judicial control over constitutional amendments, yet the court reviews constitutional amendments on grounds of protecting the constitution’s basic structure. India’s Supreme Court’s practice is a typical example of a court imposing an implicit limitation upon constitutional amendments. Therefore, before analyzing the basic structure doctrine, the study briefly examines the nature of the implicit limitations of constitutional amendments and some issues that may arise in their justification.

• Organic laws and the principle of democracy in France and Spain

  62-74

  Boldizsár Szentgáli-Tóth

  Views:

  147

  During the last decades, several countries have entrenched a special subcategory of law, which is adopted by stricter procedural rules than that of the ordinary legislative process. These laws are enacted by qualified majority, by the consent of the two chambers of the legislature, and they are subject to mandatory constitutional review before their promulgation, or additional safeguards are implemented in the ordinary legislative process. In this study, I compare the experiences of two crucial legal systems, France and Spain, which provide two different frameworks of qualified law. My aim is to identify the most contested issues from the legal nature of qualified laws, and to seek the proper solutions of these issues, as well as an ideal model of qualified law. My contribution focuses on the relationship between qualified laws and the principle of democracy, and aims to open up new perspectives in this regard.

• ’The more speech, the better’: Review of the Book of András Koltay on New Media and Freedom of Speech

  Gergely Gosztonyi

  Views:

  279

  At first glance, the new book of András Koltay seems to be a translation of his recently published volume, New Media and Freedom of Expression: Rethinking the Constitutional Foundations of the Public Sphere (Hart International, 2019). Therefore, one would expect that the work itself does not provide any new information to those who already know the original in English. That could not be less true. As we get to the bottom of this false impression, the review shows the many virtues and minor mistakes of the book.

• Judicial Review in Emergency Situations: the Relevant Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights

  200-218

  Gábor Mészáros

  Views:

  153

  Emergencies are mostly sudden, and in most cases states need special measures to deal with them. For this reason liberal democracies have standing constitutional or special legal powers to derogate human rights for the sake of order. Those democracies that do not have such powers, use impromptu ones. It is possible for authoritarian governments to abuse emergency powers in order to stay in power, to derogate human rights and to silence the opposition. Therefore it is essential for a liberal democracy to have strict limits for the duration, circumstance and scope of emergency powers. There are human rights regimes (for example: the European Convention on Human Rights) which have to respect the member states’ duty and responsibility in such cases. This article tries to examine this special case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The question is whether a European Human Rights regime is capable of becoming the guardian of human rights in cases of national emergencies, or the sovereignty of states also means that there is very narrow margin to prove legality above security?