Constituent Processes and Constitutional Courts: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

During the last third of the twentieth century, within a framework that could be labelled as ‘constitutionalism’s explosion,’ new constitutions were adopted in Spain, South Korea, and Colombia. It is noteworthy that all these new fundamental texts established Constitutional Courts. The comparative analysis of the constitutional processes which took place in these three countries, illustrates certain similarities and differences amongst them. Nevertheless, besides these similarities or differences, the argument is that at different places of the globe, far on location and somehow on time, and under specific circumstances of institutional crisis, three political societies and their leaders embraced the task of surpassing such crisis by the adoption of a new constitutional text or amendment of the existing one. In a particular way, the article tries to demonstrate that the establishment of constitutional courts in these countries implied the future validity of the constitutional consensus, as a way of success over the past crisis.