Weak Procedural Constitutionalism. The Judicial Process as Legitimacy of Judicial Review

Abstract This paper proposes a synthesis that renders democratic principles compatible with the preservation of judicial control of constitutionality. This has been mediated by what I have called ‘weak procedural constitutionalism’, a methodology through which constitutional conflicts are debated in the legislature and among the citizenry as the real holders of the final say in society, with judicial activity focused on an intermediate say and the promotion of subsequent social deliberation. The judicial process thus becomes a public dialogical procedure susceptible to intervention by citizens and capable of generating public information processes facilitating accountability. The constant quest for instrumentalities that increase the democratic legitimacy of constitutional courts is an existential necessity. Only through real opportunities for dialogue and citizen participation in the decision-making process can judicial review be made democratically palatable. This requires that both judges and legislators play an intermediate rather than primary role, one in which democratically elected legislatures enjoy a high degree of legitimacy in adopting decisions, in juxtaposition with the derivative legitimacy appurtenant to constitutional courts. The premise for the exercise of what I denominate as weak constitutionality control, or the hypothesis for a weak procedural constitutionalism, is a possible synthesis of the tension between constitutionalism and democracy, with emphasis on the Colombian case.