Post-sovereign constitutional change

Résumé En Sl

This article employs Andrew Arato’s models of sovereign and post-sovereign paradigms of constitution-making to analyse the Brexit process. The focus is not on the UK’s departure from the EU, but on the internal constitutional changes this process has initiated, such as the dis-entrenchment of fundamental rights. The first part of the argument is that the 2016 referendum was framed as an exercise of sovereign constituent power, combining the traits of extra-legal power and legitimacy attributed to an agent called ‘the people’, which possesses a single will, with the willingness of the executive to interpret and implement this will sometimes at the expense of the separation of powers. This framing is an ideological construction, but one which has been successfully operationalised by the Brexit protagonists to frame the referendum in a sovereign light. The version of Brexit which resulted from this has some normative as well as practical drawbacks, such as dis-entrenchment of fundamental rights and further fracturing of the Union respectively. The second part of the argument employs Arato’s post-sovereign paradigm to suggest a counterfactual scenario in which the 2016 referendum and its aftermath are framed differently and follow the logic of post-sovereign constituent power, thus constitutionalising the process of constitutional change itself with positive normative and practical imports.

Post-suverene ustavne spremembe. Kritika in preupodobitev Brexit-a. V tem članku avtor s pomočjo Aratovih modelov suverene in post-suverene paradigme ustavotvorja analizira proces Brexita. Pri tem se ne osredotoča na odhod Združenega kraljestva iz Evropske Unije, temveč na notranje ustavne spremembe, ki jih je sprožil ta proces, kot je na primer izguba temeljnih pravic. V prvem delu avtor trdi, da je bil referendum leta 2016 zasnovan kot uresničevanje suverene ustavodajne oblasti, združujoč lastnosti izven-pravne oblasti in legitimnosti, ki se pripisuje »ljudstvu« kot agentu, ki poseduje enotno voljo, na eni strani, s pripravljenosto izvršne oblasti razlagati in izvršiti to voljo tudi na račun načela delitve oblasti na drugi. Takšen okvir predstavlja ideološki konstrukt, ki pa so ga protagonisti Brexita uspešno operacionalizirali, zato da bi referendum oblikovali v okviru ideje suverenosti. Različica Brexita, ki je iz tega izšla, ima nekatere normativne ter praktične pomanjkljivosti, kot je na primer izguba temeljnih pravic in nadaljnja delitev Unije. V drugem delu avtor uporabi Aratovo post-suvereno paradigmo, da predstavi nasprotni scenarij, po katerem so referendum iz leta 2016 in njemu sledeči dogodki drugače uokvirjeni ter sledijo logiki post-suverene ustavodajne oblasti, s čimer pride do poustavljanja ustavnorevizijskega procesa samega z normativnimi in praktičnimi posledicami, ki so pozitivne.