Constitutional Judges and Other Means for Ensuring Compliance with the Constitution

Abstract

The Constitution is at the same time a legal and a political instrument. The paper insists on the necessary interaction between judicial and non-judicial means for ensuring compliance with the Constitution. In the long run, its strength as a political instrument will diminish if the action of constitutional judges is not supported by a constitutional culture in which constitutional arguments are taken seriously even in the absence of an immediate threat of court action. The importance of the cultural factor increases the more doubtful a constitutional norm appears to be.
In the last sections of the paper, these points are discussed in the light of a recent statement by Andrius Kubilius, former Prime minister of Lithuania. According to the wording of the statement, it may be read as saying that the existence of the Constitutional Court is the only reason why attention is paid to the Constitution in political decision-making. If this were the correct understanding, it would be a strong sign of success for the Constitutional Court but not for the Constitution of Lithuania.