ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on how European integration has impacted the role of judicial review in three consensus democracies. It explains the emergence of constitutional review and review against European law in the pre-1990 period. The chapter explores how judicial review impacts on consociational list law making in cases not related to EU law or the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and how the legislature operates to control this impact. It discusses how the European Court of Justice (ECJ) may thwart national institutional choices and how this impacts on national litigation. In the Netherlands, in order to deal with this contradiction, a legislative proposal was advanced by the Dutch MP, Femke Halsema, in 2003, which aimed to partially lift the constitutionally enshrined ban on constitutional review. The operation of the Belgian Constitutional Court illustrates how constitutional review may facilitate consociational politics. In fact, in the Netherlands, judicial review against the ECHR has become a substitute for constitutional review.
