Constitutional Court

German Federal Constitutional Court Building in Karlsruhe

A constitutional court or constitutional court is a jurisdictional body that is primarily responsible for enforcing the primacy of the constitution, interpreting it and exercising control over constitutionality of the laws and other norms of sub-legal rank, that is, review the adaptation to the constitution of the laws, and ultimately of the bills and legislative decrees or of the executive power.

According to the Kelsenian model, a constitutional court acts as a negative legislator, since it lacks the power to create laws, but in the event that it understands that one of those promulgated violates the provisions of the Constitution, it has the power to expel it of the legal system, declaring its unconstitutionality. More recent theories maintain that the task of a constitutional court is to exercise a jurisdictional function, resolving conflicts of a constitutional nature, which may include reviewing the actions of the legislature.

Some countries follow the Austrian model of a Constitutional Court, while others follow the US model of a Tribunal or Supreme Court exercising the functions of a constitutional court. In any case, it is not unusual, as in certain Ibero-American States, for control of constitutionality to be shared between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court.

Constitutional courts