THE PRELIMINARY RULING ON THE ISSUE OF CONSTITUTIONALITY IN FRANCE AND BRAZIL: DIALOGUES IN THE CONTEXT OF COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL JURISDICTION

Abstract

The paper has as purposes analyze what are the main features of the so-called “Preliminary ruling on the issue of constitutionality” in France. Moreover, it accomplishes a balance of the most important lessons that can be extracted from its ten first years of judicial practice. Furthermore, the paper establishes a brief comparison between the French and the Brazilian experiences of judicial review with the purpose of building bridges towards the mutual improvement of both judicial review’s framework. It used the hypothetical deductive method, materialized by an analysis of a selected element of the foreign experience. As a conclusion, it was possible to verify some contributions derived from the approximation of judicial review models, a dialogue that can be a source of learning regarding the specificities of Comparative Constitutional Law. In this sense, the article has shown that the French experience can contribute to the civic character, agility of processing and judgment of the preliminary ruling on the issue of constitutionality, despite the existence of criticisms regarding the reasoning of decisions and the institutional design of the Constitutional Council.