The rules of the democratic game under scrutiny: the review of the constitutionality of the electoral law

Abstract

The special location of the electoral law in the system of sources, its importance for the development of the democratic regime, and the enormous political impact that any affectation of its content has, justify an examination of the control of constitutionality that the Constitutional Court has carried out on it. The processes promoted - what is challenged, how and why - and the responses offered by the Constitutional Court are a formidable source of information for the observation and analysis of electoral law. Even in related matters - such as political representation or the content of the ius in officium of representative offices - and not so related - such as effective judicial review or the principle of legality of crimes and penalties.

From the analysis of the eight judgments handed down by the Constitutional Court from 1991 to 2021, it is possible to draw certain conclusions, some of them interesting, about the way in which these disputes are dealt with or the way in which the legislator is treated. In short, they provide an insight into the protection afforded to the rule that contains the rules of the democratic game, the materially constitutional content of which is no longer disputed.