Abstract
This Article explores how constitutional judges can become agents for development and how they may wish to go about performing this role. Due to the high politico-economic stakes involved and the inevitability of trade-offs between competing interests, judicial review of developmental questions is liable to expose judges to negative fall-outs. At the same time, it is fairly common for Asian constitutions to expressly set out the parameters or objectives for economic development that the State is expected to realize, while simultaneously recognizing a suite of (socio-)economic rights, thereby providing textual ammunition to query the validity of a government’s chosen implementation in court. Against this reality, the Article suggests a range of coping mechanisms that can mitigate risks to judicial legitimacy. At its broadest, the decentralized model of judicial review offers judges opportunities to side-step controversial constitutional questions that are unavailable to the same extent, or at all, to distinct constitutional courts. When deciding on the merits of developmental claims, courts should combine a strong presumption of constitutionality as far as the substance of the law is concerned with robust scrutiny of compliance with procedural guarantees. Additionally, courts should be better equipped with knowledge about the methodologies used by and insights from other social sciences to enable them to better evaluate extra-legal evidence submitted. This will also make it possible to better anticipate the likely economic consequences of particular judicial findings, possibly with a view to tailoring their remedies accordingly.
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© 2019 Law and Development Review
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- The Constitutionalization of Development
- Articles
- Constitutionalism and Development: A Mismatch or a Dream-Team?
- Economic Constitutions in the Developing World
- Constitutional Judges as Agents for Development
- Political Governance, Law, and Economic Development
- Economic Constitutionalism in the EU and Germany – The German Constitutional Court, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank between Law and Politics
- Democratization of Foreign Policy: India’s Experience with Paradiplomacy
- The Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights in South Korea
- The Right to Information and Transformative Development Outcomes
- Note
- South Korean Economy at the Crossroads: Structure Issues under External Pressure – An Essay from a Law and Development Perspective
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- The Constitutionalization of Development
- Articles
- Constitutionalism and Development: A Mismatch or a Dream-Team?
- Economic Constitutions in the Developing World
- Constitutional Judges as Agents for Development
- Political Governance, Law, and Economic Development
- Economic Constitutionalism in the EU and Germany – The German Constitutional Court, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank between Law and Politics
- Democratization of Foreign Policy: India’s Experience with Paradiplomacy
- The Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights in South Korea
- The Right to Information and Transformative Development Outcomes
- Note
- South Korean Economy at the Crossroads: Structure Issues under External Pressure – An Essay from a Law and Development Perspective