The Rule of the People: Deliberative Democracy and Constitutional Interpretation

Abstract

The dissertation champions popular constitutionalism. That is, that it should be the people themselves, and not judges, the ones entrusted with the final word in constitutional interpretation. It surveys the literature and claims that popular constitutionalism lacks adequate normative foundations and institutional proposals. To fill those gaps, the dissertation rejects judicial supremacy and suggests that a better institutional approach towards constitutional interpretation is found in deliberative democracy. This case is made through three groups of arguments. First, it claims that deliberative democracy safeguards the republican liberty and political equality of individuals. Second, the dissertation shows different instrumental, normative, and conceptual ways in which political and jurisprudential defences of judicial supremacy are flawed. Third, it shows that there are reasons internal to deliberative democratic theory to reject the idea that courts are deliberative exemplars. In view of these arguments, the dissertation proposes republican, deliberative and egalitarian institutional alternatives that would turn popular constitutionalism into something feasible.