Is Majority Rule Justified in Constitutional Adjudication?

Abstract

In this article, I challenge the use of a majority voting rule (majority rule) to declare statutes unconstitutional in many constitutional courts. To do this, I briefly present four main features of majority rule and assess whether these features (separately and jointly considered) provide definitive reasons for using this voting rule over others in constitutional adjudication. I conclude that these features do not provide such reasons either individually or taken together. This conclusion enables one to analyse whether constitutional courts should use other voting rules in constitutional adjudication, such as supermajority rules.