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This book examines the "constitutional faith" that has, since 1788, been a central component of American "civil religion." By taking seriously the parallel between wholehearted acceptance of the Constitution and religious faith, Sanford Levinson opens up a host of intriguing questions about what it means to be American. While some view the Constitution as the central component of an American religion that serves to unite the social order, Levinson maintains that its sacred role can result in conflict, fragmentation, and even war. To Levinson, the Constitution's value lies in the realm of the discourse it sustains: a uniquely American form of political rhetoric that allows citizens to grapple with every important public issue imaginable. In a new afterword, Levinson looks at the deepening of constitutional worship and attributes the current widespread frustrations with the government to the static nature of the Constitution.

Traditional models of constitutional secularism have struggled to accommodate the modern revival of religious politics. The concept has been criticised as empty or illegitimate, while political and legal struggles have contested its meaning. This book gathers leading experts to examine the scope and substance of constitutional secularism today.

This article deals with a basic question: How to set the age limits for the realization of the rights and freedoms, which are guaranteed by constitutions? Usually, the rights of minors are generally regulated in the civil codes. Besides, as usual, the limited position of a minor ends, when the age of 18 years is reached. However, this rule cannot be applied directly in the sphere of constitutional rights and freedoms; otherwise, the bizarre outcome would be, that many basic rights such as life, freedom and social support would be denied to minors. As usual, constitutions do not contain general age limits; they only contain age limits for several positions in the governments or Constitutional courts and for the right to vote. Age limits must be developed exclusively on the basis of constitutional law; the legislation cannot determine these age limits in the sphere of constitutional law, as the lawmaker has to follow the constitution and not in reverse order. In this article, the German and Ukrainian constitutional doctrine concerning the age limits of minors in constitutional law is presented. The comparative analyze shows, that in both constitutional doctrines these limitations are flexible in context with the special constitutional rights or freedoms. This flexible approach is thoroughly developed in the jurisdiction of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany: the rights and freedoms can be divided in two groups, general rights and freedoms and economic ones. The right of a minor, to realize the general ones depends on the state of the minor's ability to understand, to have the relevant intellectual capacity; basic rights as the right to live have minors from the birth, even as fetus. Economic rights and freedoms can usually be realized from the age of 18; that means, the constitutional doctrine applies the age limits of civil law. However, also in this sphere the realization of rights and freedoms requires some exceptions according to the requirements of rights and freedoms. The Ukrainian doctrine, as ...

The Commission resigned on 16th March 1999 shortly after the publication of the First Report of the Committee of Independent Experts.1 The Committee had been created by common agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission in order to address the persistent allegations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism levelled at the Commission.2 The First Report investigated allegations of fraud against individual commissioners and the Commission as a whole.3 Although most of the allegations of fraud against individual commissioners were discarded as unfounded, the Committee held the Commission responsible for a series of mismanagement, administrative irregularities and a general failure to oversee the work it had contracted out.4 The conclusions of the report were damning and it became clear that resignation of the whole Commission was the only way forward. The events came at an all-time low for the Commission and will have lasting effects on the institution and its legitimacy.

Article N of the Treaty on European Union (TEU ) called for an intergovernmental conference (IGC) in 1996 to reform the articles of the Treaty for which a revision is provided. Also, it was felt that the institutional question should be addressed before the next wave of enlargement; the institutional structure which was adopted to deal with six member States could hardly be stretched further to include the Eastern European applicant States. A complete re-engineering of the institutional framework was required. Furthermore, the reform of the institutions should tend to increase democracy in the Union.

Although these last two years have been relatively quiet in terms of institutional developments, a number of important inter-institutional agreements have been negotiated in order to facilitate the working of some of the powers granted by the Maastricht Treaty, while some other powers were used for the first time: the European Ombudsman has issued his first report, the European Parliament has set up two Committees of Inquiry. Lastly, the European Court of Justice delivered an important opinion as regards the European Convention on Human Rights.