Citation of Foreign Case-Law by the Spanish Constitutional Court

Abstract

This article aims at providing the state of play of the use of foreign case-law by the Spanish Constitutional Court. It will start with the normative underpinning of using foreign materials for constitutional interpretation. The legitimacy of citing foreign authorities will be discussed from the perspective of European and Spanish constitutional law. Second, the article will provide information on the extent of the use of foreign jurisprudence in the Spanish Constitutional Court’s case-law: a total amount of forty-five foreign rulings have been referred to in forty years of jurisdictional activity, mainly from the German and the Italian Constitutional Courts. Finally, the frequency, function, and legal value of that scarce but non-irrelevant practise will be critically assessed; some methodological problems emerging from that use will also be addressed.