THE GUARDIAN OF THE CONSTITUTION: HANS KELSEN AND CARL SCHMITT ON THE LIMITS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW This volume provides the first English translation of Hans Kelsen’s and Carl Schmitt’s influential Weimar-era debate on constitutional guardianship and the legitimacy of constitutional review. It includes Kelsen’sseminalpiece,‘TheNatureandDevelopmentofConstitutional Adjudication’, as well as key extracts from the ‘Guardian of the Constitution’ which present Schmitt’s argument against constitutional review. Also included is Kelsen’s review of Schmitt’s ‘Guardian of the Constitution’,aswellassomefurthermaterialbyKelsenandSchmitton presidential dictatorship under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. ThesetextsshowKelsenandSchmittrespondingtooneanother,inthe context of a debate focused on a concrete constitutional crisis, thus allowing the reader to assess the plausibility of Kelsen’s and Schmitt’s legalandconstitutionaltheories. larsvinxisanassistantprofessorintheDepartmentofPhilosophyat BilkentUniversity,Ankara,Turkey.Hismainareasofinterestarelegal and political theory, constitutional theory and the history of political thought. cambridge studies in constitutional law Theaimofthisseriesistoproduceleadingmonographsinconstitutional law.Allareasofconstitutionallawandpubliclawfallwithintheambitof theseries,includinghumanrightsandcivillibertieslaw,administrative law,aswellasconstitutionaltheoryandthehistoryofconstitutionallaw. Awidevarietyofscholarlyapproachesisencouraged,withthegoverning criterion being simply that the work is of interest to an international audience. Thus, works concerned with only one jurisdiction will be includedintheseriesasappropriate,while,atthesametime,theseries will include works which are explicitly comparative or theoretical – or both. The series editors likewise welcome proposals that work at the intersectionofconstitutionalandinternationallaw,orthatseektobridge thegapsbetweencivillawsystems,theUS,andthecommonlawjuris- dictionsoftheCommonwealth. SeriesEditors DavidDyzenhaus ProfessorofLawandPhilosophy,UniversityofToronto,Canada AdamTomkins JohnMillarProfessorofPublicLaw,UniversityofGlasgow,UK EditorialAdvisoryBoard T.R.S.Allan,Cambridge,UK DamianChalmers,LSE,UK SujitChoudhry,Toronto,Canada MonicaClaes,Maastricht,Netherlands DavidCole,Georgetown,USA K.D.Ewing,King’sCollegeLondon,UK DavidFeldman,Cambridge,UK CoraHoexter,Witwatersrand,SouthAfrica ChristophMoellers,Goettingen,Germany AdrienneStone,Melbourne,Australia AdrianVermeule,Harvard,USA Booksintheseries: TheGuardianoftheConstitution:HansKelsenandCarlSchmittonthe LimitsofConstitutionalLaw TranslatedbyLars Vinx,withanintroductionandnotesbyLars Vinx ParliamentaryBillsofRights:TheExperiencesofNewZealandandthe UnitedKingdomExperiences Janet L. HiebertandJames B. Kelly LawyeringfortheRuleofLaw:GovernmentLawyersandtheRiseof JudicialPowerinIsrael Yoav Dotan BalancingConstitutionalRights:TheOriginsandMeaningsofPostwar LegalDiscourse Jacco Bomhoff JudgesonTrial:TheIndependenceandAccountabilityoftheEnglish Judiciary Shimon ShetreetandSophie Turenne ProportionalityandConstitutionalCulture Moshe Cohen-EliyaandIddo Porat ThePoliticsofPrinciple:TheFirstSouthAfricanConstitutionalCourt, 1995–2005 Theunis Roux TheNewCommonwealthModelofConstitutionalism,Theoryand Practice Stephen Gardbaum SearchingfortheStateinBritishLegalThought:CompetingConceptions ofthePublicSphere Janet McLean JudgingSocialRights Jeff King Proportionality,ConstitutionalRightsandtheirLimitations Aharon Barak ParliamentarySovereignty:ContemporaryDebates Jeffrey Goldsworthy THE GUARDIAN OF THE CONSTITUTION: HANS KELSEN AND CARL SCHMITT ON THE LIMITS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Translation, introduction, and notes by LARS VINX UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107092686 ©LarsVinx2015 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. FirstpublishedinEnglishbyCambridgeUniversityPress2015 ThisworkcontainstranslationsofextractsfromDerHüterderVerfassung,by CarlSchmitt(©1996,Duncker&HumblotGmbH,Berlin)andPositionen undBegriffe,imKampfmitWeimar–Genf–Versailles1923–1939, byCarlSchmitt(©1994,Duncker&HumblotGmbH,Berlin). PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata Theguardianoftheconstitution:HansKelsenandCarlSchmittonthelimitsof constitutionallaw/editedandtranslatedbyLarsVinx. pages cm–(Cambridgestudiesinconstitutionallaw) ISBN978-1-107-09268-6(Hardback) 1. Kelsen,Hans,1881–1973–Correspondence. 2. Schmitt,Carl,1888–1985– Correspondence. 3. Constitutionallaw–Philosophy. 4. Executive power–Germany. I. Kelsen,Hans,1881–1973,author. II. Schmitt,Carl, 1888–1985,author. III. Vinx,Lars,editortranslator K339.G83 2015 342.001–dc23 2014029908 ISBN978-1-107-09268-6Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication, anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Chapters1,4,and6areprintedwiththekindpermissionoftheHansKelsen-Institut inVienna. CONTENTS Acknowledgements pageviii Anoteonthetexts ix Introduction 1 1 Kelsenonthenatureanddevelopmentofconstitutional adjudication 22 2 Theguardianoftheconstitution:Schmitt’sargumentagainst constitutionalreview 79 3 Theguardianoftheconstitution:Schmittonpluralism andthepresidentastheguardianoftheconstitution 125 4 Whooughttobetheguardianoftheconstitution? Kelsen’sreplytoSchmitt 174 5 PrussiacontraReich:Schmitt’sclosingstatement inLeipzig 222 6 KelsenonthejudgmentoftheStaatsgerichtshofof 25October1932 228 Notes 254 Bibliography 266 Index 274 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thepublicationofthisvolumewouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthe generous support of Professor David Dyzenhaus and of Finola O’Sullivan at Cambridge University Press. I am very grateful to the Hans Kelsen-Institut in Vienna, to Duncker & Humblot in Berlin, and to Professor George Schwab in New York for giving me permission to make use of the texts that are translated in this volume. I am also indebted to the two referees of the initial proposal for Cambridge University Press who made a number of very valuable suggestions and to Simon Wigley who read a draft of the introduction. Finally, I would liketothankmycopy-editorJeremyLangworthyforhelpingtoimprove thequalityoftheEnglishtext. viii