ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

had inherited from its Socialist past. Yet, this paper
argues that the developments that took place in the
last twenty-five years are not progressive enough and
that further improvements are still needed.
Paul Blokker: The Romanian Constitution and
Civic Engagement
The paper engages with the status of citizens and
civil society in the Romanian Constitution of 1991 as
well as their role in on-going constitutional politics
and reform. First, the paper will engage with a brief
theoretical discussion of the relation between citizens
and constitutional change. Second, formal constitutional
institutions and instruments of participation in
Romania will be discussed in terms of available democratic
instruments, related to representative and direct
democracy, and in particular to possibilities of civic
engagement in constitutional reform. Third, the usage
of participatory instruments in the 1990-2015 period
will be briefly discussed, with a particular focus on direct
democracy and constitutional revision. Fourth, the
paper will study the process of constitution-making
and constitutional reform from the perspective of civic
influence.
Bianca Selejan-Guţan: 25 Years After:
The Constitutional Court and Others in the
Romanian Constitutionalism
The Romanian current constitutional system has
undergone numerous developments since its establishment
in 1991. The Constitutional Court appeared as
one of the central elements of the rule of law guarantee
in Romania. The paper intends to present a critical
overview of the actual role of the Constitutional Court
in the Romanian constitutionalism, in the different contexts
that link the Court with “others”: with the state
powers as well as with the individuals. The emphasis
will be placed on the relationship between the Constitutional
Court and the political powers, as well as on
the relationship with the judicial system. A presentation
in context will be envisaged: sources of inspiration;
how the Court itself was seen as ‘the Other’ in its early
years; the boundaries of constitutional review and the
changing relationship with the legislature; the intriguing
relationship with the executive, especially with the
President; the sinuous relationship with highest court
of the judiciary.
56 «LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ»
SOCIAL CHANGE BY
UNCONVENTIONAL LEGAL MEANS
The panel will present three models of social change
by means of unexpected redesigning constitutional
structure and institutions. The first paper (on liberty)
will show how an international religious court may help
women to gain their freedom from religious marriage.
The second paper (on equality) will suggest civic education
and naturalization should be designed on equal
ideological grounds and hence claim civic education
exceeds its liberal mandate. The third paper (on fraternity)
will demonstrate why socio-economic rights
should be regulated via values of fraternity rather than
the market exchange. Thus, the panel will deal with the
challenges of public life and governance, combining
elements in the very heart of public and comparative
law, as well as social sciences and political theory.
Participants Mohsin Bhat
Felix Petersen
Roman Zinigrad
Name of Chair Roman Zinigrad
Room DOR24 1.606
Mohsin Bhat: Fraternity and Regulation: Socioeconomic
Rights as a Social Practice
Socio-economic rights have strained the classical
picture of rights, property and the State. A controversial
area is their impact on private rights and the regulation
of property to make it accessible to the public.
This paper contends that balancing – predominantly
adopted by the courts and scholars – is inadequate
to deal with such cases. By only stressing on rights,
this method fails to focus on what values are at stake
in such cases and identify the intellectual resources
for resolving such conflicts. I argue that we should pay
attention to the values democratic politics inscribes to
social practices that are recognized as socio-economic
rights. Focusing on the right to education cases in
India and South Africa, I will show that social practices
that come to be regarded as socio-economic rights
are better understood as governed by the values of
fraternity rather than market exchange. Fraternity provides
a stronger and more appealing normative basis
of resolving such conflicts.
Concurring panels 93
Felix Petersen: Judicial Review and Social
Construction: The Case of the Turkish Constitutional
Court
The Turkish Constitutional Court, Anayasa Mahkemesi
(AYM), is often described as an agent of the
regime. In this study critical appraisals of the AYM will
not be refuted. Quite contrary, the aim is to make explicit
what it means that a judicial review body becomes
political by promoting problematic social constructions.
The article focuses on judgments that deal with