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This contribution examines the evolution of the Constitutional Court of Benin (CCB) as a critical guardian of constitutionalism, political stability, and human rights in the context of Benin’s democratic transition following the 1990 Constitution. Next to actively defending the constitutional order and being resilient against executive overreach, the CCB also expanded its authority by amending the constitution to address anticipated threats to democratic principles. However, vulnerabilities in its institutional design, particularly concerning the appointment procedure and terms of office, rendered it susceptible to political manipulation. These design flaws were compounded by public mistrust of constitutional reforms, thwarting efforts to rectify these shortcomings. 25 years after its inauguration, the CCB was co-opted by political elites, culminating in its diminished efficacy. Despite this decline, the CCB’s early legacy and its partial safeguards offer valuable lessons for constitutional resistance and resilience.

The topic of constitutional amendments in Nicaragua has not been widely studied beyond its borders. Since its promulgation in 1987, the Nicaraguan Constitution has been amended approximately sixteen times, modifying over 95 articles. Some of these changes were minimal, while others led to revolutionary alterations that disrupted essential elements such as the form and system of government and fundamental rights. To understand the dynam­ics of the constitutional amendments carried out between 1987 and the first quarter of 2024, this essay examines the content of those amendments and analyzes the constitutional amendment procedure established by the Nica­raguan Constitution. This procedure, combined with the country’s political situation, the absence of explicit unamendable clauses, and a virtually non-existent judicial review of constitutional amendments, makes it relatively easy to carry out all kinds of changes, with equal potential for both use and abuse of the constitutional amendment power. El tema de las reformas constitucionales en Nicaragua no ha sido muy estu­diado más allá de sus propias fronteras. Desde su promulgación en 1987, la Constitución nicaragüense ha sido reformada alrededor de dieciséis veces. En dichas ocasiones, se modificaron más de 95 artículos. Algunos de estos cam­bios fueron mínimos, pero otros llevaron a cabo alteraciones revolucionarias que trastocaron elementos esenciales como la forma y sistema de gobierno y los derechos fundamentales. Para comprender la dinámica de las reformas constitucionales llevadas a cabo entre 1987 y el primer trimestre de 2024, se hace un recorrido por el contenido de aquellas y se analiza el procedimiento de reforma constitucional diseñado por la Constitución nicaragüense, que, aunado a la situación política de aquel país, a la ausencia de cláusulas pétreas expresas y a un ––prácticamente–– inexistente control judicial de las reformas constitucionales, vuelve relativamente fácil la realización de toda clase de cambios, usando y abusando por igual del poder de reforma constitucional.

This paper discusses the tension between the constitutional amendment power and transitional justice. This controversy takes place in contexts where transitional justice institutions are introduced with the aim of strengthening other democratic institutions. The issue under consideration is the possibility of an undemocratic use of the amendment power under the veil of transitional justice and the response of Constitutional Courts to this use. This risk is associated with the resistance of Constitutions to change, a risk that increases when the Constitution is more flexible. The Colombian case illustrates this discussion and allows us to identify a response from the Constitutional Court to this use. Este artículo plantea una discusión entre la reforma constitucional y la justicia transicional. Esta controversia tiene lugar en contextos donde se introducen instituciones de justicia transicional con el objetivo de fortalecer otras instituciones democráticas anteriores. El núcleo de la discusión es que el poder de enmienda constitucional puede ser utilizado de forma antidemocrática bajo el velo de la justicia transicional, así como las respuestas de las Cortes Constitucionales a este uso. Este riesgo está ligado a la resistencia de la Constitución al cambio, siendo mayor cuando ésta es más flexible. El caso colombiano ilustra esta discusión y permite identificar la respuesta de la Corte Constitucional a este uso.

The unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine has emerged as a highly successful, albeit still controversial, export in comparative constitutional law. The doctrine has often been defended as protecting a delegation from the people to the political institutions that they created. Other work has noted the doctrine’s potential utility in guarding against abusive constitutionalism. In this article, we consider how these justifications fare when expanded to encompass claims against the original constitution itself, rather than a later amendment to the text. That is, beyond the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine, can or should there be a doctrine of an unconstitutional constitution? Our question is spurred by a puzzling 2015 case from Honduras where the Supreme Court held an unamendable one-term limit on presidential terms, as well as protective provisions punishing attempts to alter that limit, to be unconstitutional. What is particularly striking about the case is that these provisions were not later amendments to the constitution, but rather parts of the original 1982 constitution itself. Thus, this article examines the possibility of ‘an unconstitutional constitution’, what we predict to be the next trend in global constitutionalism.

The Supreme Court of Cyprus in its ruling in Election Petition 1/2019 has for the first time made reference to ‘basic structure’ and ‘unconstitutional constitutional amendments’. The purpose of the article is to assess the rationale of the Court, primarily in internal terms and in relation to its impact on the Cypriot constitutional setting (the internal fit element). From that analysis, the decision of the Court can then be placed in the ongoing debate about ‘unconstitutional constitutional amendments’ and the doctrine of ‘basic structure’ (the external fit element). It is argued that the Court’s approach represents an imperfect fit both in internal and external terms. Moreover, the judicial approach is destabilized by the thin theoretical density attributed to the terms that were used as the foundation for the declaration of the competence for substantive review of amendments to the Constitution. The Court refrained from invalidating the constitutional amendment but proceeded to invalidate the derivative administrative acts, thus applying in a half-way the newly introduced competence.

A major challenge for contemporary legal constitutionalism is a crisis of public ethics that manifests in the lack of mutual toleration and institutional forbearance towards the judiciary. To showcase the importance of these norms in the relationship among co-equal branches of government, I focus on three cases, one where these norms have been present—South Africa—one where they have been absent—Mexico—and one case in between—United States. Until this crisis is addressed, the authority of apex courts will continue to be under threat. The Article suggests that a starting point to address the public ethics deficit may lie in shifting comparative constitutional law scholarly attention to the political sphere.

This article examines whether there are any limitations on constitutional amendment powers that are external to the constitutional system and above it—‘supra-constitutional’ limits. It considers the theory and practice of the relationship between natural law, international law or other supranational law, and domestic constitutional law in a comparative prism. After considering the alleged supremacy of supranational law over constitutional amendments, the author explores the problem of the relationship between the different legal orders in the external/internal juridical spheres, and the important potential and actual role of national courts in ‘domesticating’ supranational law and enforcing its supremacy. It is claimed that despite the growing influence of supranational law, state practice demonstrates that constitutional law is still generally superior to international law, and even when the normative hierarchical superiority of supranational law is recognized within the domestic legal order, this supremacy derives not from supranational law as a separate legal order, but rather from the constitution itself. Therefore, it is claimed that existing practice regarding arguments of ‘supra-constitutional’ limitations are better described by explicit or implicit limitations within the constitution itself, through which supranational standards can be infused to serve as valid limitations on constitutional amendment powers.

Numerosas cortes en todo el mundo han evaluado o ejercido la facultad para invalidar una reforma constitucional. Sin embargo, no debemos tomar la creciente prevalencia de la teoría de la reforma constitucional inconstitucional como evidencia de su conveniencia para todos los Estados constitucionales. Es imperativo que los actores constitucionales comprendan que hay otra respuesta a la pregunta sobre si una reforma puede ser inconstitucional. Este artículo tiene tres objetivos y tratamos de cumplir cada uno de ellos con referencia a tres jurisdicciones específicas, Francia, Georgia y Turquía, cuyas constituciones y prácticas constitucionales concomitantes han rechazado expresamente esta teoría de una manera que refleja lo que describimos como una resistencia formalista común a las reformas constitucionales inconstitucionales. En primer lugar, pretendemos demostrar que la teoría de la reforma constitucional inconstitucional aún no ha madurado lo suficiente como para convertirse en una norma de constitucionalismo global. También procuramos explicar cómo opera una jurisdicción que rechaza expresamente la idea de una reforma constitucional inconstitucional frente a una reforma que, en otras circunstancias, sería invalidada por ser inconstitucional en una jurisdicción donde sí fuese aceptada la teoría. Por último, buscamos evaluar lo que se gana y lo que se pierde en un Estado constitucional cuando se rechaza esta teoría. Uno de los hallazgos es que la decisión de rechazar esta teoría tiene consecuencias tanto de fortalecimiento como de debilitamiento para la democracia. Nuestro propósito más amplio es inherente a nuestra investigación en sí misma: diversificar nuestro pensamiento sobre el riesgo que se corre al considerar la aceptación de la teoría de la reforma constitucional inconstitucional como una característica necesaria del constitucionalismo, cuando el diseño y la práctica constitucional muestran claramente lo contrario.

The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. InRestoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost. Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a \"presumption of liberty\" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people. As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative,Restoring the Lost Constitutionforcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond. This updated edition features an afterword with further reflections on individual popular sovereignty, originalist interpretation, judicial engagement, and the gravitational force that original meaning has exerted on the Supreme Court in several recent cases.

El presente artículo no pretende poner en duda el control de constitucionalidad, radicado en la rama judicial, que desde 1910 se erige como principio del modelo de Estado de Derecho colombiano, sino que busca formular una crítica al control de constitucionalidad, realizado por un órgano judicial, a las reformas constitucionales, en especial a las adelantadas por la rama legislativa como uno de los titulares del poder de reforma constitucional. Para ello se parte de un análisis histórico que permitirá demostrar que la tesis de la sustitución no tiene su origen en la Sentencia C-551-03, sino que está antecedida de la revisión de reformas constitucionales a la Constitución de 1886. Además, esto pondrá en evidencia que esta teoría ha sido utilizada más en contextos históricos y políticos que han llevado a la rama judicial a aplicar el control constitucional de reforma como herramienta política. Por otro lado, un análisis desde la Constitución de 1991 hará palmario que la teoría de la sustitución, aun cuando puede tener una fundamentación política, carece de sustento jurídico en ese texto constitucional, pues ante la ausencia de cláusulas pétreas, aquella confía a la Corte Constitucional el control estrictamente formal de las reformas constitucionales y el control de estas radica en el pueblo cuando las adelante el Congreso de la República.