East Nordic Model of Pre-Enactment Constitutional Review: Comparative Evidence from Finland and Sweden

For the last three decades, legal scholarship on the judicial review of legislation has dominated comparative constitutional studies. Moreover, one of the emerging interests in comparative constitutional law is pre-enactment (ex ante) control of constitutionality. Historically, legal thinking in the US has advanced judicial review, while British tradition has prioritized parliamentary sovereignty, in which parliament, not courts, is the ultimate decision maker related to constitutional disputes. The current scholarship, nevertheless, argues that a particular constitutional model has emerged in a number of Commonwealth countries in which courts and legislatures are not considered alternative to each other, contrary to the traditional paradigms that prioritize either courts or legislatures. One of the defining features of this model is the pre-enactment constitutional review of proposed legislation. In some of those countries, pre-enactment review of legislation is available only in the form of executive responsibility, while the legislature has a key role in the remaining countries, in addition to the commitment of the executive. This article investigates whether similar pre-enactment constitutional review mechanisms exist elsewhere. For this purpose, it will examine East Nordic constitutional practice and ask whether there is a particular type of pre-enactment constitutional review in Finland and Sweden. The function to review constitutionality of proposed legislation belongs to non-judicial mechanisms in both Finland and Sweden. However, pre-enactment constitutional review mechanisms in these two polities are hardly considered in comparative constitutional law. This article aims to fill this gap by drawing comparative scholars’ attention to the East Nordic constitutionalism. judicial review, comparative constitutional law, pre-enactment constitutional review, Nordic constitutionalism, Finland & Sweden