Representational justice and constitution-making : the constitutional convention of the EU

Abstract

The thesis will attempt to answer the following question: Was the constitutional convention of the EU (the Laeken-convention), as a process, legitimate? I will approach this problem by laying out a liberal theory of representational justice, the aim of which is to analyse processes of constitution-making. Finally, I will explain in what way this approach is a realistic utopia, and consider what lessons one can draw from this.

The second chapter, I will make an account of the theoretical issues concerning my thesis. I will begin by explaining what a constitution is, and what it does. The main element of the chapter will be to construct the concept of representational justice as deduced from a general liberal theory, and as a consequence provide several rules a constitution-making process must heed in order to reach justice. These rules are what Barry explains as the a priori method, and can be conceived of as ideal conditions for a constitution-making process. These rules are then operationalized, or what Barry refers to as the application of empirical method. The theoretical deduction from principles of justice becomes abstract rules which furthermore become explicit demands the process must heed if it is to reach procedural legitimacy. The reason for demanding a process to be legitimate is because the goal is justice, and when Scanlon s comprehensive conception of justice is presented as this goal, the process itself becomes a subject for legitimacy and especially the aspect of representation.

The third chapter will be an account of how the different demands, for achieving a legitimate representative process, are met within the framework of the convention. I will therefore analyse how the empirical demands from the operationalization of theory were answered within the process. At the end of the chapter I will answer the question: Was the Laeken-convention, as the constitutional process of the EU, legitimate?

In the end I will make an overall assessment of the theoretical approach itself. The main issue of this thesis is to look at how the theory works, and I will explain the need within normative theory to set theoretical demands as a realistic utopia.