Jueces sin toga: una aproximación republicana al control judicial participativo
| Autor | Alejandro Cortés-Arbeláez |
| Cargo | Predoctoral researcher and Ph.D. candidate, Pompeu Fabra University?Law & Philosophy Research Group. |
| Páginas | 41-83 |
ALEJANDRO CORTÉS-ARBELÁEZ*
Judges without Robes: A Republican
Approach to Participatory
Judicial Review**
Jueces sin toga:
una aproximación republicana
al control judicial participativo
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a republican approach to judicial review that is based on
a deliberative and participatory interpretation of this institutional arrange-
ment. The paper is divided into five sections, plus an introduction. Section
I presents some considerations and clarifications regarding the concept of
judicial review and the type of republican political theory that underlies the
main arguments. Section II reconstructs the republican critique of judicial
review. Section III shows that subscribing to a republican perspective does
not necessarily lead to the endorsement of this critique and presents a de-
fense of judicial review that relies on a republican conception of deliberative
democracy that stresses the potential of this institution as a mechanism that
serves to promote political participation in equal terms and that, thus, imbues
judicial review with a participatory democratic legitimacy. Section IV argues
that the participatory democratic legitimacy of judicial review should be seen
as a gradual phenomenon whose relative strength or weakness depends on
the variations of specific characteristics of the institutional context where
the judiciary operates. Section V presents some conclusions.
* Predoctoral researcher and Ph.D. candidate, Pompeu Fabra University–Law & Philoso-
phy Research Group. Email: alejandro.cortes@upf.edu. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1279-7657. This
paper is based on the MA thesis I presented in the Master in Political Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra
University. I want to thank professor José Luis Martí for his supervision of the thesis, Ignacio
Giuffré for his useful comments, and the reviewers of this journal who made excellent sugges-
tions to improve the manuscript. All mistakes and shortcomings are my exclusive responsibility.
** Received on July 12nd, 2022, approved on June 27th, 2023.
To quote the article: Cortés-Arbeláez, A. Judges without Robes: A Republican Approach
to Participatory Judicial Review. In Revista Derecho del Estado, Universidad Externado de
Colombia. No. 57, September – December, 2023, 41-83.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.N57.03
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 56, mayo - agosto de 2023, pp. 41-83
42 Alejandro Cortés-Arbeláez
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 57, september-december 2023, pp. 41-83
KEYWORDS
Judicial review, republicanism, democracy, participation, legitimacy.
RESUMEN
Este artículo presenta un enfoque republicano del control judicial de cons-
titucionalidad de las leyes que se basa en una interpretación deliberativa y
participativa de este arreglo institucional. El documento se divide en cinco
secciones, más una introducción. La Sección I presenta algunas considera-
ciones y aclaraciones sobre el concepto de control judicial y el tipo de teoría
política republicana que subyace a los principales argumentos del trabajo. La
Sección II reconstruye la crítica republicana al control judicial. La Sección III
muestra que suscribir una perspectiva republicana no necesariamente lleva a
respaldar esta crítica y presenta una defensa del control judicial que se apoya
en una concepción republicana de la democracia deliberativa que enfatiza el
potencial de esta institución como un mecanismo que sirve para promover
la participación política en igualdad de condiciones y que, por tanto, dota al
control judicial de una legitimidad democrática participativa. La Sección IV
argumenta que la legitimidad democrática participativa del control judicial
debe ser vista como un fenómeno gradual cuya fuerza o debilidad relativa
depende de las variaciones de las características específicas del contexto
institucional donde opera el poder judicial. La Sección V presenta algunas
conclusiones.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Control judicial, republicanismo, democracia, participación, legitimidad.
SUMMARY
Introduction. 1. Setting the ground: Conceptual considerations and clarifica-
tions. 1.1. Defining judicial review. 1.2. Civic republican political theory. 2.
The republican critique against judicial review. 2.1. The legitimacy of political
decision-making: Procedural vs. substantive approaches. 3. A participatory
conception of judicial review. 4. The participatory democratic legitimacy of
judicial review: A gradual approach. 4.1. The institutional context of judi-
cial review and the intensity of the counter-majoritarian difficulty. 4.2. The
institutional conditions of participatory judicial review. 4.2.1. Constitutional
rigidity and constitutional amendment mechanisms. 4.2.2. Restrictions to the
declarations of unconstitutionality: Required majorities in supreme/consti-
tutional courts. 4.2.3. Rules of standing in supreme/constitutional courts.
4.2.4. The right to a voice: Who can intervene during processes of judicial
43
Judges without Robes: A Republican Approach to Participatory Judicial Review
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 57, september-december 2023, pp. 41-83
review? 4.2.5. Selection rules for constitutional justices. Conclusions: Judges
without robes. References.
INTRODUCTION
Judicial review is an institutional arrangement whereby the decisions made
by democratically elected legislative bodies are subject to control and pos-
sible invalidation by the judiciary for being incompatible with the constitu-
tion1. Although judicial review emerged in the United States more than two
hundred years ago, this institution has expanded its reach profusely in the
last decades, in the context of the third wave of democratization2. Accord-
ing to data gathered by the Comparative Constitutions Project3, 10% of the
world’s constitutional systems incorporated a scheme of judicial review in
their constitutions by the end of the Second World War. This number had
risen to 82% by 2011, as shown in Graph 14.
1 After the post-World War II period, an increasing number of polities became “willing
to use international law as a source of binding legal duties to be invoked by individuals” and,
consequently, to exercise judicial review to control legislation incompatible with international
human rights obligations. Doreen Lustig and J. H. H. Weiler, “Judicial Review in the Contem-
porary World—Retrospective and Prospective,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 16,
no. 2 (2018): 327. That is, however, a topic that goes beyond the scope of this paper.
2 Sebastián Linares, La (i)legitimidad democrática del control judicial de las leyes,
Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2008, 17.
3 Comparative Constitutions Project, “Replication Data for the Research Paper: Ginsburg,
T., & Versteeg, M. (2013). ‘Why Do Countries Adopt Constitutional Review?’ University of
Virginia School of Law Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series 2013-29” Com-
parative Constitutions Project (blog), 2013.
4 A few clarifications are in order. The Comparative Constitutions Project: (i) uses the
term “constitutional review” and not “judicial review”, since they argue that the term judicial
review also includes the review of the executives’ administrative actions by the judiciary, while
constitutional review limits itself to “the formal power of a local court or court-like body to set
aside or strike legislation for incompatibility with the national constitution”; (ii) considers as
countries with constitutional review only those where constitutional review is explicitly included
in the constitution, not those where the judiciary exercises such power by virtue of their own
interpretation of the constitutional text, thereby excluding countries such as the paradigmatic
case of the United States; (iii) includes 203 countries in its database. It is also important to note
that the impressive growth of the number of polities with a scheme of judicial review incorpo-
rated in their constitution is in good part explained by the expansion in the number of countries
that adopted a written constitution during the second half of the twentieth century, such as the
former colonies in Africa; see Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg, “Why Do Countries Adopt
Constitutional Review?,” The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 30, No. 3 (2014):
589; Comparative Constitutions Project, “Replication Data for the Research Paper: Ginsburg,
T., & Versteeg, M. (2013). ‘Why Do Countries Adopt Constitutional Review?’ University of
Virginia School of Law Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, 2013-29”.
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