A Tale of Two Maps: The Limits of Universalism in Comparative Judicial Review

For most of the twentieth century, the dominant paradigm in comparative public law was particularism. This was accompanied by a strong skepticism towards universalist features and possibilities in public law and, especially, constitutional law. With the rise of judicial review after World War I--and especially in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union--comparative judicial review has begun to flourish. However, comparative scholarship on judicial review overemphasizes the centrality of the question of legitimacy of judicial review in a democratic polity. This has been a result of the mistaken extrapolation of the American debate over judicial review to other countries. Examples from Canada, South Africa, and Israel reveal that the question of legitimacy is, in each of these countries, less important and decisively different in character than in the United States. It is therefore time to recall and embrace some of the particularist skepticism when comparing judicial review across different legal systems