2009 sok európai országban évfordulós év, és még a következő esztendőkben is sok helyütt fognak megemlékezni a világban a 20 évvel ezelőtti demokratikus fordulatokról. A mostani jubileumi hullámot nemcsak az magyarázhatja, hogy nagyobb távlat nyílik a két évtizedes történelem és kezdetének megítélésére, mint mondjuk 10 évvel ezelőtt, hanem az is, hogy 20 év majdnem egy emberöltőnyi idő.

Mit großer Freude bin ich der Einladung des Präsidenten des Verfassungsgerichts der Republik Ungarn, Herrn Professor Dr. Peter Paczolay, zu diesem Festakt aus Anlass des 20-jährigen Bestandes des ungarischen Verfassungsgerichts gefolgt.

Constitutional justice in the countries of new democracy in chronological sense is basically approximating its majority; its history as a whole duplicates the history of our new – ideologically, politically, sometimes geographically – states, reflecting various changes in political landscape and more often – political weather. Having almost two decades (in some countries, where organs of quasi-constitutional justice were organized under socialism, even more) of functioning and evolution, the organs of constitutional control in our countries may begin to reckon up and evaluate their own activity and practices in historical context.

Fifteen years after its creation and five years ago, the Constitutional Court of Hungary entered into the circle of what are now 19 constitutional courts operating in the European Union.   The significant increase in the number of national constitutional courts following the major enlargements of the European Union in 2004 and 2007 has not altogether simplified the delicate relationship between that particular section of the judiciary and the European Court of Justice. The question, fundamentally, is whether there is any basis – given the characteristics and special jurisdiction of the national constitutional courts – for assessing their relationship with our Court of Justice differently from that of the other courts of the Member States. Or, to put it another way: to what extent do the principles and criteria developed in regard to cooperation between the European Court of Justice and the national courts apply equally to constitutional courts?

The relationship between European law  and national constitutional law still remains a debated issue in the national constitutional space. The core of the relationship concerned is the primacy of European law to  any provisions of national law that run counter it. For Bulgaria the effect has been achieved through the Second Amendment  to the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria (CRB), through jurisprudence of the Constitutional court of the country and through amendments to the Bulgarian legislation.

The Institution of a Constitutional Court in Belgium marked the start of a shift from parliamentary to judicial sovereignty, as since then the final word about the constitutionality of laws no longer lies in the hands of the legislator...

The topic of this conference, “Politics and law in constitutional justice; from the political questions’ doctrine to judicial politics”, has certainly not been chosen at random; it is both attractive and interesting, for almost a century it has been considerably controversial in the judicature of American federal courts, and, in particular, it has been undoubtedly very topical in the current practice of the constitutional courts of the Central and Eastern European countries for the last twenty years, from the iron curtain’s fall.

The subject under discussion is a very broad one. Bearing this in mind, I will not be able to include in this short presentation all the information I would like to. Therefore, I will today give you just some basic information about the Croatian Constitutional Court and its jurisdiction concerning the abstract review of laws from the points of its activism and its self-restraint.

Since the main theme of this conference is "Politics and Law in Constitutional Justice: from the political question's doctrine to judicial politics", I would like to present on "The Effects of the Constitutional Adjudications on Politics in Korea". It would be the status of the Constitutional Court in Korea, the constitutional adjudications on political issues, and the role of the Constitutional Court in relation with politics in sequence.

The topic set for this Conference, which is therefore the topic of this paper, implies the notion of the ordering of things, i.e. it entails the necessity to view the position of the Constitutional Court in the legal system of the Republic of Serbia. In other words, let us look back, after 45 years, on its role and significance in the contemporary legal-constitutional system of the Republic of Serbia regarding the rights and freedoms of its citizens, as well as regarding the faith in the rule of law, and the effect of law in general...