The sovereign minority: the qualified majority rule for constitutional amendments

Abstract

The paper challenges the widespread intuition according to which the constitutional amendment procedure normatively requires the application of the qualified majority rule as a collective decision rule. To this end, the relationship between majority rule and the qualified majority is clarified and the link between qualified majority and constitutional supremacy is questioned. The institutional role played by the qualified majority rule of the constitutional amendment in parliament is then clarified in order to discredit the widespread justification of the qualified majority based on the notion of precommitment.

Keywords

• majority rule
• qualified majority rule
• constitutional amendment
• precommitment
• constitutional rigidity.