Constitutional Council (France)

The Constitutional Council (French: Conseil constitutionnel; French pronunciation: ​[kɔ̃sɛj kɔ̃stitysjɔˈnɛl]) is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958, and its duty is to ensure that the principles and rules of the constitution are upheld.

Its main activity is to rule on whether proposed statutes conform with the Constitution, after they have been voted by Parliament and before they are signed into law by the President of the Republic (a priori review); since 1 March 2010, individual citizens party to a trial or lawsuit can also ask for the Council to review whether the law applied in the case is constitutional. In 1971, the Council ruled that conformity with the Constitution entails conformity with two texts referred to by the preamble of that constitution: the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the of the of the Fourth Republic, both of which list constitutional rights (e.g., freedom of speech).

The Government of France consists of an executive branch (President of the Republic, Prime Minister, ministers, and their services and affiliated organizations), a legislative branch (both houses of Parliament), and a judicial branch. The judicial branch is, unlike for instance the federal judiciary of the United States under the Supreme Court, not organized into a single hierarchy (administrative courts fall under the Council of State, civil and criminal courts under the Court of Cassation), and some of its entities also have advisory functions. For historical reasons there has long been a hostility to having anything resembling a "Supreme Court"—that is, a powerful court able to quash legislation. Whether the Council is a court is a subject of academic discussion, but some scholars consider it the supreme court of France.

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