Constitutional courts and supreme courts exercising judicial review outside the United States often are not usually as politically influential as their American counterpart, but there are notable exceptions. The Supreme Court, for example, is widely regarded as the most powerful government institution in India. It has used its powers of judicial review, its custody of the “fundamental freedoms” of the Indian constitution, and its understanding of the needs of Indian society to assert its authority to make policy on virtually any matter that invokes the “public interest” or requires “social action.” To do so, it has all but abandoned the requirement that would-be litigants have even minimal standing to sue. It has asserted, successfully, its right to declare unconstitutional even properly adopted constitutional amendments when such amendments violate the unspecified but judicially defined “basic structure” of the constitution.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines is also worth noting for its prestige, powers, and broad policy role in national politics. The Philippine constitution adopted in 1987 after the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos explicitly limited the courts to deciding actual cases or controversies, but it effectively rejected the validity of the political question doctrine as a limit of the power of courts by establishing their duty to decide by judicial review “whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to a lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of government.” Using this and other constitutional powers, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has been deeply involved in questions of national economic and social policy, human rights, and presidential succession.

Less dramatically, judicial review has become an element of at least some weight in the constitutional processes of many countries. The expansion of judicial review is in fact part of a broad judicialization of politics around the world: a trend toward relying on judges to make policy decisions in areas that were previously within the purview of other governmental institutions.

The consequences of judicial review in the United States have been enormous. From the late 1930s through the 1960s, a liberal Supreme Court used its powers of judicial review to broaden democratic participation in government and to expand the rights of citizens, especially those of minorities and the accused. Beginning in the 1970s, a more-conservative Supreme Court resisted the expansion of rights in many areas and limited the effects of previously established rights in others. Nevertheless, it did not, by and large, overturn the panoply of rights created by its predecessor.

In Europe and elsewhere judicial review has been used to advance the same democratic values that inspired the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court from the late 1930s. European constitutional courts, in particular, have modified the legal systems of their countries here and there by interpreting the rights enumerated in their respective constitutions in ways that bear comparison with the American experience of judicial review. Nevertheless, European courts have tended to be more cautious than the U.S. Supreme Court in expanding the freedoms of the individual at the expense of other competing values.

A few examples may illustrate the differences between American and European applications of judicial review. In the area of freedom of expression, the American doctrine holds that no seditious or subversive speech can be punished unless it poses a “clear and present danger” of inciting immediate unlawful action. Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court has been extremely reluctant to approve prior restraint of speech or expression. The freedom to express unorthodox opinions is also clearly recognized by European constitutions and is upheld by the constitutional courts when they are confronted with laws that curtail it. But European doctrine has not accepted the American standard of clear and present danger or prior restraint. Thus, the Italian constitutional court requires, for the punishment of speech advocating the use of violence, that the speech create, in the circumstances, a “danger,” but it does not specify that the danger must be “immediate.” The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, judging on the basis of constitutional provisions that forbid speech and associations directed at impairing the liberal-democratic foundations of the state, has dissolved neo-Nazi and other parties without even considering the element of actual “danger.” On the same basis it has upheld laws excluding from public employment persons holding subversive beliefs. In the United States the law of libel (see defamation) concerning public figures actively protects free speech inasmuch as, under the doctrine of New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), plaintiffs who are public figures cannot win unless they prove that the libeler acted with “actual malice” (that he knowingly asserted a false statement). In Europe a finding of liability for the defamation of a public figure does not constitutionally require such proof.

The U.S. Supreme Court has found (Roe v. Wade, 1973; Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1992) that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy entitles her to obtain an abortion freely, prior to the point at which the fetus attains viability. No European constitutional court has gone this far in recognizing a freedom to obtain an abortion. The Italian court held in 1975 that voluntary abortions cannot be punished if performed for the purpose of preserving the life and health—either physical or emotional—of the woman. The Austrian court (1974) and the French Constitutional Council (1975), without addressing the problem of a woman’s constitutional right to interrupt pregnancy, have validated statutes that provide in liberal terms for the possibility of voluntary abortions. In a unique ruling in 1975, the Federal Constitutional Court of West Germany held that the West German constitution, by declaring the life of persons inviolable, implicitly protects the life of fetuses and that an adequate protection is afforded by the state only if voluntary abortion is made a crime by law. The law of East Germany was much more permissive, and, a few years after the reunification of the two German states (1990), the Constitutional Court, while reaffirming the principle that the fetus must be protected, held that such protection must be achieved not through punishment but through counseling and other measures aimed at influencing a woman to decide freely to carry her pregnancy to term.

The separation of church and state, as provided for by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, has led the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in a series of cases that officially sanctioned Bible reading, prayer, and religious instruction in public schools are unconstitutional. Separation of church and state, although contemplated in principle also by European constitutions, is sometimes tempered by constitutional provisions making accords between church and state possible in matters of common interest. No European court has ruled that accords giving students the opportunity to attend religious courses in public schools violate the principle of religious freedom or the principle of the equality of all citizens before the law.

In other areas of the law, European constitutional courts have proved to be as ready as, and sometimes even more ready than, the U.S. court to afford protection to the rights of the individual. In the United States, Mapp v. Ohio (1961) established that illegally obtained evidence cannot be produced at a trial to substantiate criminal charges against the defendant. (In Herring v. United States [2009], however, the Supreme Court declared that evidence obtained from an unlawful arrest that results from an innocent error in record keeping by police can be used against the defendant.) This “exclusionary rule” also is in force, at least partially, in much of Europe. The Italian constitutional court, for example, has stated that such a rule is required on constitutional grounds. In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a confession made by the accused under arrest cannot be used as evidence unless he has been previously advised of his rights, among which is the right to remain silent and the right to consult with a lawyer. The Italian constitutional court declared unconstitutional (1970) a law that excluded the suspect’s attorney at the interrogation by the investigatory authorities and at other proceedings intended to secure evidence against the accused.

Although courts in the United States can be asked to review the lawfulness of administrative actions, the Supreme Court is still reluctant to establish as a matter of constitutional due process that citizens are always entitled to sue in court in order to have administrative decisions set aside if contrary to ordinary substantive or procedural rules. The Italian and German constitutions explicitly state the principle and admit no exception, and the courts of both countries carefully see to it that the principle is respected and that citizens are not deprived of their day in court, even if the other party is the administrative agency.

While applying the principle of equality in cases of sex discrimination and discrimination against children born out of wedlock, European courts often have gone beyond the doctrines of the U.S. Supreme Court in the same areas. According to the German rule, for example, husband and wife must have the same rights within the family; in particular, parental power over the children belongs equally to both. The Italian court has in many respects reshaped family law to ensure the equal rights of the wife and of children born out of wedlock and has defended the right of women to treatment equal to that of men in labour relations. Effective legislative protection against discrimination aimed at non-European immigrant workers and their families is still deficient in EU countries, and, by and large, constitutional courts have said little in this area. But they have shown remarkable sensitivity when the problem affects local ethnic or linguistic minorities. The U.S. Supreme Court found that programs of “affirmative action” meant to help minorities who were previously discriminated against did not necessarily constitute “reverse discrimination” in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. A similar ruling in the 1970s by the Italian court validated laws that reserved a proportion of public jobs and publicly financed housing for the German-speaking population of Alto Adige, who had inhabited the region for centuries.

It is true that European courts thus far have not openly defied the political powers of the state in the way the U.S. Supreme Court has sometimes done. Even when the European courts have somehow challenged such powers by annulling laws that were supposedly of special interest to them, the conflict has not really been acute. But the greater prudence of European courts is not difficult to explain. It is the result of many factors, prominent among which are the facts that their legitimation as independent and active agencies within the political system is recent and that the tradition of judicial review does not yet have the firm roots it possesses in the United States.

Transnational judicial review

In Europe judicial review has transcended the boundaries of the state. In actions reminiscent of the nation-building efforts of the early U.S. Supreme Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has “constitutionalized” the various EU treaties, establishing their superiority to national laws and its right to exercise judicial review over the compliance of national laws—including national constitutions—with provisions of the treaties. Because the EU has been primarily an economic union since its inception in the 1950s as the European Coal and Steel Community, judicial review by the ECJ has focused on economic rights and relations in member countries. Nevertheless, the ECJ has begun to develop, through judicial review, rights that go beyond the economic sphere and that approach those addressed by the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), which had been ratified by some 45 countries by the early 21st century. As a consequence, European law is now subject to judicial review on human rights matters by the European Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. Besides granting a remedy in a pending case, the European Court of Human Rights also may find statutory and other national laws contrary to the provisions of the convention. If it does so, the country concerned is obligated to adapt its legal rules to the principles stated by the court.

A convention on human rights similar to the European one was signed in 1969 by several Latin American countries. An Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over individual complaints, began functioning in 1982.

Thus, the idea of the rights of the individual, after having contributed three centuries ago to the birth of modern constitutional law, has now become the mainspring of another incipient, promising experience: judicial review with transnational dimensions.