Grad - Isiksel

Abstract

This paper argues that whereas we tend to think of constitutionalism as a device for protecting basic rights or ordering democratic self-government, the supranational legal order that has developed out of the Treaty of Rome has little to do with either. While the European legal order borrows the legal and institutional machinery of constitutionalism, including a schedule of individual rights, an integrated legal hierarchy, and judicial review by the European Court of Justice, these serve as instruments for administering economic tasks, rather than as mechanisms for legitimating the exercise of political authority. The paper seeks to show that due to its overwhelmingly economic thrust, European integration has engendered a novel, pragmatic form of constitutional practice that is largely disconnected from the normative attributes traditionally associated with constitutionalism.