Expounding the Constitution
Essays in Constitutional Theory

This book addresses key issues in contemporary theory, including the nature of interpretation of bills of rights and the legitimacy and justification of judicial review.

Grant Huscroft (Edited by)

9780521173346, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 August 2011

332 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

"...An eclectic array of writing with transnational panache....Huscroft has done a fine job of collecting interesting essays. The book presents a politically and philosophically balanced view of constitutional theory....The essays are fairly accessible....Huscroft's introduction helps weave the patchwork of essays together....Altogether, the book is a good read, and is recommended for those interested in constitutional theory and interpretation, judicial review, and legal philosophy."
--Adam Shajnfeld (J.D., Columbia), The Law and Politics Book Review

What does it mean to interpret the constitution? Does constitutional interpretation involve moral reasoning, or is legal reasoning something different? What does it mean to say that a limit on a right is justified? How does judicial review fit into a democratic constitutional order? Are attempts to limit its scope incoherent? How should a jurist with misgivings about the legitimacy of judicial review approach the task of judicial review? Is there a principled basis for judicial deference? Do constitutional rights depend on the protection of a written constitution, or is there a common law constitution that is enforceable by the courts? How are constitutional rights and unwritten constitutional principles to be reconciled? In this book, these and other questions are debated by some of the world's leading constitutional theorists and legal philosophers. Their essays are essential reading for anyone concerned with constitutional rights and legal theory.

Part I. Morality and the Enterprise of Interpretation: 1. What does constitutional interpretation interpret? Steven D. Smith
2. Do judges reason morally? Jeremy Waldron
3. Constitutional morality and bills of rights W. J. Waluchow
4. Justification and rights limitations Bradley W. Miller
Part II. Judicial Review, Legitimacy, and Justification: 5. Constitutions, judicial review, moral rights, and democracy: disentangling the issues Larry Alexander
6. The incoherencies of constitutional positivism David Dyzenhaus
7. The travails of Justice Waldron James Allan
8. Deference rather than defiance: the limits of the judicial role in constitutional adjudication Aileen Kavanagh
Part III. Unwritten Constitutional Principles: 9. Constitutional justice and the concept of law T. R. S. Allan
10. Written constitutions and unwritten constitutionalism Mark D. Walters
11. Unwritten constitutional principles Jeffrey Goldsworthy.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Social & political philosophy [HPS]