Constitutional Council, constitutional control, a priori control, a posteriori control, constitutionality, fundamental rights, legislative elections, presidential elections, referendum operations, international treaties
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Abstract
The Constitutional Council performs constitutional control through a priori and a posteriori control, ensuring the protection of fundamental rights and verifying the constitutionality of laws and international treaties.
Extract
[...] The composition of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council is divided into two categories of members: those appointed and those of right. Regarding the appointed members, the Constitutional Council is composed of 9 members who are renewed every 3 years and chosen in equal proportion by the President of the Republic, by the President of the National Assembly, and by that of the Senate. The nominations of the members of the Constitutional Council are submitted to the public opinion of the permanent commission relative to constitutional laws. [...]
[...] Members of the Constitutional Council must respect the incompatibilities provided for in Article 57 of the Constitution and cannot be a minister, parliamentarian, member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), hold an elective mandate or have any profession that would raise a conflict of interest. They are subject to a duty of reserve. II) The competences of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council is a consultative body, an electoral jurisdiction and a judge of constitutionality. As a consultative body, the Constitutional Council must be consulted for advice in certain cases provided for by the Constitution. Thus, Article 7 of the Constitution provides that the Government must consult the Constitutional Council to have the President of the Republic's inability to continue his missions certified. [...]
[...] The a posteriori control is allowed since the constitutional law of July by Article 61-1 of the Constitution. This control concerns laws that have already entered into force and is carried out in the context of a dispute before a court of the judicial or administrative order. Thus, the Priority Constitutional Question allows, in the context of a dispute, to transmit the question of constitutionality to the Court of Cassation or to the Constitutional Council which will then transmit it to the Constitutional Council. [...]
[...] Finally, the Constitutional Council performs the control of constitutionality. This competence ensures the protection of fundamental rights grouped in a block of constitutionality built by the Constitutional Council in its jurisprudence called Liberty of Association of 1971. It performs mandatory constitutional controls to control the regularity of the regulations of the parliamentary assemblies, for any organic law and for the referendum laws of Article 11. Then, it controls the constitutionality of international commitments and ordinary laws on a facultative basis. [...]
[...] Furthermore, the Constitutional Council constitutes an electoral jurisdiction due to several of its attributions related to it. In fact, the Constitutional Council is the judge of the regularity of referendum operations, it publicly proclaims the results and can be consulted at the stage of preparation of these last ones due to Article 60 of the Constitution. However, it does not control the constitutionality of referendum laws since they are the direct expression of national sovereignty (Decision DC of November 1962). [...]
