The Rule of the Courts

Francisco Balaguer Callejón

T HE ALGORITHM THAT PRONOUNCES THE WORDS OF THE LAW . T HE EVOLUTION OF THE ROLE OF THE COURTS IN PROTECTING RIGHTS AND GUARANTEEING THE RULE OF LAW UP TO THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

Francisco Balaguer Callejón

1. Transitions and ruptures in constitutionalism

I will attempt to analyse the evolution of the Judiciary following the guidelines outlined by my friend Vasco Pereira in his previous address at this Congress. I will begin with the initial “non-Judicial Power” of early constitutionalism, to which he referred, and continue with the evolution of the powers of application of the law and guarantee of rights by judges and courts from a historical perspective. The starting point will certainly be that position of null power, of “no power.” From the view of the judge as “the mouth that pronounces the words of the law” 1 in a process of rupture with the previous world order, as exemplified by the French Revolution and the establishment of early constitutionalism, which was later followed by the transition to the Constitutional State. The current situation, in which a new historical rupture is emerging, implies a return, in a certain sense, 1 “Il pourrait arriver que la loi, qui est en même temps clairvoyante et aveugle, serait, en de certains cas, trop rigoureuse. Mais les juges de la nation ne sont, comme nous avons dit, que la bouche qui prononce les paroles de la loi; des êtres inanimés qui n’en peuvent modérer ni la force ni la rigueur”, Charles de Secondat de Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois , 1748, Éditions Gallimard, París, 1995, p. 116.

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