Jurisprudence of constitutional values: origin, criticism and defense against it

Abstract

Values approach to the substance and interpretation of constitution originates from Weimar Germany and after World War II was adopted and applied by the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) soon after it’s establishing. Declaring the constitution as “objective order of values” inspired legal scholars in Germany and abroad to develop the value theory of law and borrowed by courts of Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Venezuela and Russia. At the same time jurisprudence of values became an object of sharp critics, manifested in a book published in Germany in 1960 by Carl Schmitt — Tyranny of values and later developed by other authors. Opposing their arguments, author defenses the values method of constitutional interpretation and describes the features and specificity of thinking about constitution as a system of values. Author reasons that values are not aggressive, do not pretend to dominate over norms and principles and are not subjective. The author’s position supports the idea that values choice is not rational, while states that this does not impede to keep law certain and predictable — if the values, found by courts behind the legal norms and principles and applies in concrete cases, will be explicitly defined and consequently and non-contradictorily realized in judicial practice.

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