Many liberals cannot help distrusting deliberative democracy theory. In their view, the theory offers no sufficient guarantee that the outcomes of democratic deliberation will be respectful of individual interests generating what they conceive as basic moral rights. The purpose of this text is to provide one argument showing that liberal rights are sufficiently protected within deliberative democracy theory. The argument does not rest on the idea of moral rights or material justice. It rests on the conditions of legitimate law deliberative (...) democracy theory presupposes, namely, the conditions that make concrete the idea of legitimacy as “actual public justification.”. (shrink)

Four questions dominate normative contemporary constitutional theory: What is the purpose of a constitution? What makes a constitution legitimate? What kinds of arguments are legitimate within the process of constitutional interpretation? What can make judicial review of legislation legitimate in principle? The main purpose of this text is to provide one general answer to the last question. The secondary purpose is to show how this answer may bear upon our understanding of the fundamental basis of constitutional law. These two purposes (...) should suggest particular answers to the first three questions. (shrink)