The Max Planck Handbooks in European Public Law: Volume III: Constitutional Adjudication: Institutions

The Max Planck Handbooks in European Public Law describe and analyse public law of the European legal space, an area that encompasses not only the law of the European Union but also the European Convention on Human Rights and, importantly, the domestic public laws of European states. Recognizing that the ongoing vertical and horizontal processes of European integration make legal comparison the task of our time for both scholars and practitioners, the series aims to foster the development of a specifically European legal pluralism and to contribute to the legitimacy and efficiency of European public law.

The first volume of the series began this enterprise with an appraisal of the evolution of the state and its administration, offering both cross-cutting contributions and specific country reports. The third volume (the second in chronological terms) continues this approach with an in-depth appraisal of constitutional adjudication in various and diverse European countries. Fourteen country reports and two cross-cutting contributions investigate the antecedents, foundations, organization, procedure, and outlook of constitutional adjudicators throughout the Continent. They include countries with powerful constitutional courts, jurisdictions with traditional supreme courts, and states with small institutions and limited ex ante review. In keeping with the focus on a diverse but unified legal space, each report also details how its institution fits into the broader association of constitutional courts that, through dialogue and conflict, brings to fruition the European legal space. Together, the chapters of this volume provide a strong and diverse foundation for this dialogue to flourish.

Armin von Bogdandy is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and Professor for Public Law at the University in Frankfurt/Main. He has been President of the OECD Nuclear Energy Tribunal as well as a member of the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and the Scientific Committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights; he has held visiting positions at the NYU School of Law, the European University Institute, the Xiamen Academy of International Law, and the Universidad Nacional Auton�ma de M�xico, among others. Von Bogdandy is the recipient of the Leibniz Prize, the prize for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of legal and economic foundations by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Premio Internacional ’Hector Fix Zamudio’, and the ’Mazo’ (gavel) of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights. His research centres on the structural changes affecting public law.

Peter M Huber is a Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, and holds the Chair of Public Law and Constitutional Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. He was a member of the Commission on Media Concentration Control (2002-09), head of the German Law Faculties Association from 1999-2009, and has been a member of various parliamentary commissions, in addition to a role as Minister of the Interior of Thuringia (2009-10). He is the co-editor of Current Problems in the Protection of Human Rights: Perspectives from Germany and the UK (with K Ziegler, 2013) and of Legal Challenges in the Global Financial Crisis: Bail-outs, the Euro and Regulation (with W-G Ringe, 2014).

Christoph Grabenwarter is Vice President of the Constitutional Court of Austria. Since 2006, he has been a professor for Public Law at the University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna.