The Role of Constitutional Courts in Multilevel Governance

Constitutional review has not only expanded geographically; it has also expanded in its mission and function, acquiring new subject areas and new roles and responsibilities. In examining these new roles and responsibilities, this collection reflects on constitutional review as an aspect of constitutionalism framed in the context of multilevel governance. Bringing together a number of remarkable, yet varied, contributions, it explores how institutional changes of multilevel governance have transformed the notion, shape and substance of constitutional review. To this end, four key roles, new and old, are identified: courts act as guardian of fundamental rights, they oversee the institutional balance, they provide a deliberative forum and they assume the function of a regulatory watchdog. This book explores these different roles played by national and European courts, and the challenges brought about by the involvement in multilevel networks and the shift to new concepts of governance.


About this book
‘[This] collection offers a novel contribution to the debate concerning constititionalisation of the European Union and the role national and European courts play in this process.’
X in S.E.W. (2014) 46

‘[a] thorough and complex exploration of the matter.’
Robert Zbiral in CMLRev (2014) 699

‘This book is impressive for many reasons: the authors have managed to gather together a set of challenging contributions, offering a quite fresh account of the role of constitutional courts in the multilevel context. […] Although all the chapters deal with very different topics, they all present a strong continuity and this is indeed a merit of the editors: I am sure this volume is going to be a point of reference for scholars interested in European and comparative constitutional law.’
Giuseppe Martinico in E. L Rev. (2014) 588