Journal article
Early parliamentary dissolutions and judicial review: lessons from comparative cases
- Abstract:
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In this article, I explore some implications of judicial challenges to early dissolutions of national parliaments from a comparative perspective. I assess two cases where the constitutionality of the dissolution was upheld (Germany 1983 and 2005) and four where it was not (Czechia 2009, Nepal February 2021 and July 2021 and Pakistan 2022). The evidence suggests that judicial intervention in parliamentary dissolution disputes is often inferred rather than explicitly codified in legal statutes, underscoring the profound impact unwritten constitutional norms and democratic tradition can have on the political process. Predictably, judicial scrutiny of governmental actions enables courts to oversee and, when necessary, rectify breaches of constitutional limits and instances of executive overreach. The Nepalese and Pakistani cases further suggest that the judiciary can play an active role in safeguarding the cardinal principle of parliamentarism, dictating that the legislature must be able to subject governments to the test of confidence when required or if it so desires. A review of the history of judicial intervention in earlier cases of assembly dismissals in Pakistan, however, highlights how this process is not always consistent and unbiased. Gaining a deeper understanding of these interactions is important, given their highly consequential nature, as well as timely, given the increasing reliance on the judicial branch for the adjudication of disputes related to parliamentary dissolution in recent years.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 676.2KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500178
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis
- Journal:
- Comparative Legal History More from this journal
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 1
- Pages:
- 91-111
- Publication date:
- 2025-05-05
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2049-6788
- ISSN:
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2049-677X
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2124444
- Local pid:
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pubs:2124444
- Deposit date:
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2025-06-24
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Francesco Bromo
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
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