Conceptual Analysis of Constitutional Reasoning: with Looking at Procedures of European Constitutional Courts

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor Of Public Law Shahid Behsti University

2 Shahid beheshti university,faculty of law

Abstract

Courts and tribunals are the most important institutions for presenting reasoning in the legal systems of any country and reasoning and its quality play an important role in procedures. This matter has been not only at the level of ordinary courts but also at the level of constitutional procedure, and reasoning has played a central role in the decisions of constitutional courts. In this article, we try to analyze how the constitutional courts are able to extract the most and useful meaning from the brevity, ambiguity or silence of the constitution by using complex tricks and methods of interpretation and reasoning. Therefore, we try to address some basic questions about the nature of legal reasoning and substantive reasoning, constitutional reasoning methods, and the methods and patterns of reasoning of the constitutional courts of countries in their decisions. In order to answer to the above questions, it should be said briefly: “constitutional reasoning” is a method of legal reasoning that tries to push the legal arguments of the constitutional judge towards justification and while being faithful to the constitution, takes a distance from the judge's personal/subjective arguments. Constitutional judges generally follow different ways of reasoning which in this brief we have dealt with three argumentative approaches, namely ‘linguistic approach’, ‘systemic approach’ and ‘value or teleological approach’. Constitutional courts have also usually chosen one of the above methods of reasoning, based on their country's social, political and historical background.

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Main Subjects

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History

  • Receive Date: 16 July 2022
  • Revise Date: 15 October 2022
  • Accept Date: 26 August 2023

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