INTERPRETATION OF CONSTITUTIONS: A DOCTRINAL STUDY

Hans Kelsen perceives a 'Constitution' as an idea of the highest order that determines the whole legal and political order of a country- a template for legal distribution of political power amongst its constituent units. This means that the Constitution determines the genesis of statutes,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNational Law School of India Review Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 136 - 148
Main Authors Datar, Arvind P, Unnikrishnan, Rahul
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bangalore National Law School of India 01.01.2017
Subjects
Constitution-US
Constitutional review
Judicial reviews
Political power
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Summary:Hans Kelsen perceives a 'Constitution' as an idea of the highest order that determines the whole legal and political order of a country- a template for legal distribution of political power amongst its constituent units. This means that the Constitution determines the genesis of statutes, determination of the organs and the procedure of legislation. The idea that the basic rule of the Constitution forms the foundation of all orders of the State and is thereby required to be as firm and unchangeable as possible, invariably leads to the view that it is necessary to differentiate between constitutional norms and statutory norms. Craig Ducat argues that the various modes of constitutional interpretation are concerned not only with addressing how the practice of judicial review is to be harmonized with democratic institutions, but also with the procedure that standard courts should use to determine whether a given legislative, executive, administrative or judicial action contravenes the Constitution.