Resumen de Welche Republik?: der Bezug auf republikanische Traditionen im französischen Verfassungsrecht nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg
Since 1971, the French constitutional court has declared the constitutional force of several "founding principles" of the republican legal tradition. The court formed these principles using elements of ordinary laws of the time before World War II. Yet, when the French constitutional court declared that these principles had a general validity and constitutional force, it did take into account neither the historical circumstances in which the original laws had been created nor the will of the law-makers to restrain the validity of the priciples declared in these laws. The article intends to show how the reference to a tradition has been used, at different steps in French constitutional history, to legitimate or to disguise the introduction of new norms.
