Constitutions, Judicial Review, Moral Rights, and Democracy: Disentangling the Issues

Abstract

Should countries have constitutions? Should there be American or Canadian style judicial review of constitutional questions? Should constitutions have provisions establishing rights? Or is there a fundamental right to decide democratically the most important issues confronting us, and particularly, the content of the rights we possess?

These questions are frequently not distinguished, with the predictable result that an answer to one is taken to be an answer to another. I intend, however, to make it clear that and why they are separate questions.

Keywords: Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, Moral Rights, Judicial Review