Comparative Constitutional Reasoning

'Despite substantial academic attention to the rise of judicial power, we know fairly little about how newly empowered courts interpret their constitutions and justify their decisions. This timely and impressive edited collection fills this gap by presenting qualitative and quantitative data from 18 courts and over 700 cases. The volume is a must-read for those interested in comparative constitutional interpretation.' Mila Versteeg, University of Virginia School of Law

'This volume is the mature product of a very thorough, innovative, and reasonably large research project. It is impossible to do justice to the richness of its findings ...' Katalin Capannini-Kelemen, I-CONnect (www.iconnectblog.com)

Andrs Jakab is the Director of the Institute for Legal Studies at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is also Professor of Constitutional and European Law at Pzmny Pter Catholic University, Budapest. Arthur Dyevre is Associate Professor of Empirical Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Law, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He works in the fields of legal theory, judicial behaviour, European integration, comparative law and comparative politics. Giulio Itzcovich is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law in the Department of Legal Science, Universit... degli Studi di Brescia, Italy. He is also a permanent fellow of the Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy at Universit... degli Studi di Genova.

1. Introduction: comparing constitutional reasoning with quantitative and qualitative methods Andrs Jakab, Arthur Dyevre and Giulio Itzcovic; 2. The High Court of Australia Cheryl Saunders and Adrienne Stone; 3. The Austrian Constitutional Court Konrad Lachmayer; 4. The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil Conrado Hbner Mendes; 5. The Supreme Court of Canada Hugo Cyr and Monica Popescu; 6. The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Zdenk Khn; 7. The European Court of Human Rights Janneke Gerards; 8. The European Court of Justice Giulio Itzcovich; 9. The French Constitutional Council Arthur Dyevre; 10. German Federal Constitutional Court Michaela Hailbronner and Stefan Martini; 11. The Constitutional Court of Hungary Andrs Jakab and Johanna Frhlich; 12. The Supreme Court of Ireland Eoin Carolan; 13. The Israeli Supreme Court Suzie Navot; 14. The Constitutional Court of Italy Tania Groppi and Irene Spigno; 15. The Constitutional Court of South Africa Christa Rautenbach and Lorens du Plessis; 16. The Spanish Constitutional Court Marian Ahumada Ruiz; 17. The Constitutional Court of Taiwan Wen-Chen Chang; 18. The Supreme Court (House of Lords) of the United Kingdom Tamas Gyorfi; 19. The Supreme Court of the United States Howard Schweber and Jennifer L. Brookhart; 20. Conclusion Andrs Jakab, Arthur Dyevre and Giulio Itzcovich.