The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 408 (1819).

29 

See a debate on this between Scheppele and Arato: K. L. Scheppele, “Constitutional Negoti-

ations: Political Contexts of Judicial Activism in Post-Soviet Europe,” in S. A. Arjomand (ed.) 

Constitutionalism and Political Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2007); A. Arato, Post Sovereign 

Constitution Making: Learning and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 86, 

173–5.

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Lost in Transition 

551

of the court because of its weak democratic justification.

30

 Although it also 

touched on the very nature of East Central European coordinated transitions, 

this discussion can be placed within the general debates on the final guardi-

ans of the constitution. The main question was supposedly which organ pos-

sesses the “final word” in matters of constitutional justice. In this way the rival 

scholars were revolving judicial interpretive authority, as well as its mandate 

to review the constitutionality of legislative acts.

It is noteworthy that Sólyom’s approach vindicated even the status of a substi-

tute constitution-making authority, much beyond the role of final constitutional 

arbitrator, as opposed to the Dworkinian theory, which argues for constitutional 

review only by saying that democracy does not insist on judges having the last 

word in constitutional issues, but it does not insist that they must not have it.

31

We may say that anti-parliamentarian sentiments from the constitution- 

interpreting authority in an emerging parliamentary democracy seem para-

doxical. Unfortunately, the fight over “who has the final say” overshadowed 

those pluralistic and cooperative approaches, highlighting that parliament 

and constitutional court may mutually react to each other’s activity.

As regards to methods of interpretation of constitutional rights, we also find 

a special hierarchy. By explaining the invisible constitution, the Chief Justice 

and his fellow justices declared that human life and dignity have the great-

est value in the constitutional order. Furthermore, “the rights to human life 

and human dignity form an indivisible and unrestrainable fundamental right 

which is the source of and the condition for several additional fundamental 

rights.”

32

 Subsequently the Court added that the freedom of expression, the 

so-called “mother right” of fundamental rights of communication (freedom of 

the press and all media, as well as freedom of information), also takes a special 

place in the hierarchy of rights. Although this privileged place does not mean 

that this right may not be restricted – unlike the right to life or human dignity –  

it nonetheless necessarily implies that the freedom of expression must only 

give way to a few rights; that is, the laws restricting this freedom must be strictly 

construed.

33

 Finally in this line, the Court stated further that this second-best 

30 

B. Ackerman, The Future of the Liberal Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 

1992), Ch. 6. See also S. Holmes, “Back to the Drawing Board” (1993) 2 East European Con-

stitutional Review 21; S. Holmes and C. R. Sunstein, “The Politics of Constitutional Revision 

in Eastern Europe,” in S. Levinson (ed.) Responding to Imperfection: Theory and Practice of 

Constitutional Amendment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 300.

31 

R. Dworkin, Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 2005), 7.

32 

Judgment 23/1990 (X. 31.) HCC.

33 

Judgment 30/1992 (V. 26.) HCC.

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552