Professor Aileen Kavanagh, Dublin: Stopping Short of Striking Down

Summary: In comparative constitutional law and theory, the judicial power to strike down laws has long been viewed as a powerful weapon on the judicial arsenal, because it enables courts to invalidate or nullify democratically enacted laws. In this lecture, Professor Aileen Kavanagh will argue that the strike-down is neither as strong, as central, nor as censorious as is often assumed. Situating the strike-down in its broader adjudicatory context across multiple jurisdictions, she will show that judges often stop short of striking down. Even if they decide to declare a law invalid, judges use various techniques to soften the blow of the strike-down, and narrow its temporal and legal effects. The upshot is that the strike-down is neither as final, as fatal, nor as forceful as is often assumed.

Professor Aileen Kavanagh holds the Chair of Constitutional Governance at Trinity College Dublin, where she is Director of TriCON, the Trinity Centre for Constitutional Governance. She is author of numerous articles and books, including, most recently, The Collaborative Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2024) which was the winner of the 2025 Inner Temple Book Prize, a major prize for outstanding legal authorship awarded triennially by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in London. Her work has been cited by many courts across the world, including the Irish Supreme Court, New Zealand Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Jamaica, the Supreme Court of India, the High Court of Australia, the United Kingdom Supreme Court, the Kerala High Court, the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia), the New South Wales Court of Appeal (Australia), and the Supreme Court of Western Australia.