Soft law įtaka konstitucinės jurisprudencijos raidai

Abstract

This dissertation systematically analyses the preconditions in formulating the official constitutional doctrine to rely not only on traditional sources of the interpretation of the Constitution, i.e. the text of the Constitution and the previously formulated official constitutional doctrine, as well as on binding international and EU legal acts, but also on non-binding legal acts (soft law) adopted by competent international institutions acting in the field of constitutional law, to assess the impact of such legal acts on the development of the official constitutional doctrine, and to clarify whether, in deciding constitutional justice cases, it is possible to derogate from the regulation, enshrined in such legal acts, consolidating the principles and standards of the European constitutional heritage. The research is designed to demonstrate that soft law acts of constitutional law adopted by universally recognized international institutions, reflecting Europe’s constitutional heritage and consolidating European constitutional standards, as well as some soft law acts of EU institutions, have a significant impact on the development of national constitutional jurisprudence. When formulating the official constitutional doctrine, the Constitutional Court should take into account the European constitutional standards, which express common values and are enshrined in the relevant soft law acts, whereas the choice to disregard them would be more comprehensible (more justified) if it were accompanied by the constitutional justification. Furthermore, the national law-making institutions should also follow generally accepted soft law acts (such as codes of good practice adopted by the Venice Commission) in order to keep in line with the European constitutional standards and the trends of European constitutional law.