We were delighted to welcome Professor Aileen Kavanagh (Trinity College Dublin) to deliver this year's Graz Jurisprudence Lecture "Stopping Short of Striking Down."
Drawing on her newly published article in the International Journal of Constitutional Law (advance access: https://lnkd.in/eqaFrhMr), Professor Kavanagh argued that the judicial power to strike down legislation is neither as strong, as central, nor as censorious as comparative constitutional theory has long assumed. Courts across jurisdictions frequently stop short of striking down – and when they do invalidate laws, they deploy a range of techniques to soften and narrow the blow. The strike-down, in short, is neither as final, as fatal, nor as forceful as its critics claim. A lecture that challenged some of the deepest assumptions in normative constitutional theory – and did so with remarkable clarity and force.
Our heartfelt thanks to Professor Kavanagh for an evening of exceptional scholarship.