Constitutional reasoning has been a flourishing field of research in comparative constitutional law in the past decade. This essay reviews two books that have made a significant contribution to the field. The success of these books is also shown by the fact that both were reprinted in paperback last year. The first book, as the author András Jakab declares, “provides a theory for constitutional lawyers about fundamental questions of European constitutional law” (at 1). At the same time, it serves as a conceptual foundation for the second book, which is an edited collection on comparative constitutional reasoning, and the final product of a five-year research project, involving twenty-five scholars from four continents who authored the various contributions, each examining one court’s style of constitutional reasoning. András Jakab is among the leaders of this research project (together with Arthur Dyevre and Giulio Itzcovich) and the editors of the second book. The essay will present the two books in this order.

The essay discusses the phenomenon of judicial dissent from a comparative perspective, with special focus on European constitutional courts most of which allow the publication of dissenting opinions. It presents the most common arguments for and against the publication of dissent, discusses dissenting opinions’ difficult relationship with certain fundamental principles, such as judicial independence and legal certainty, and examines their personal dimension, i.e. the judges’ point of view. Finally, it reflects on the compatibility of dissenting opinions with the perceived role of the judge in the civil law tradition.

In a long-awaited decision published in December (Decision no. 22/2016 (XII.5.) AB of 30 November 2016, the only one officially translated into English that year), the Hungarian Constitutional Court seems to have settled some of the questions related to the relationship between the EU legal order and Hungary’s constitutional order. In this decision, the Hungarian constitutional judges offer some guidance on two important concepts: state sovereignty and constitutional self-identity.

Hungarian constitutional and legislative reforms have been in the spotlight since Hungary’sadoption of a new Fundamental Law, which entered into force on the first day of2012. Europe’s two leading international organizations (the Council of Europe and theEuropean Union) already issued an opinion about it the year before its entry into force,and they continued to closely follow Hungarian constitutional developments duringensuing years. The new Fundamental Law was followed by a series of new ‘cardinallaws’ and many controversial reforms. This article presents and discusses the opinionsdelivered by the Venice Commission, the European Court of Human Rights, and theeu institutions on these reforms and the different types of arguments on which theyrelied. This article also aims to present the interaction between the Hungarian governmentand Europe’s two leading organizations concerning the new constitutional settingof Hungary, focusing on the legal arguments in each case.