ABSTRACT
Discussing and rejecting the claim that recent developments in central and eastern Europe show that some nations in that region have a distinctive form of constitutionalism, Matej Avbelj argues that privileging the already dominant religion; closing down channels of communication; clamping down on NGOs and sanctioning non-compliant universities; undermining judicial independence’, and other actions are ‘the denial’ of constitutionalism. Unsurprisingly, there are minimalist definitions of liberal constitutionalism as well. Under a minimalist definition, liberal constitutionalism requires only that the government be constrained by a principle of non-arbitrariness: Every action it takes must be justifiable (or perhaps actually justified) by reasons stated in general terms. Similarly, the vocabulary might be helpful in understanding some aspects of the ‘basic structure’ doctrine according to which constitutional amendments that alter the basic structure of a nation’s constitution might be unconstitutional.