Constitutional court

A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged violted with constitutionally established rules.

Seats of some constitutional courts:

History

Before establishment of independent constitutional court

Prior to 1919, the United States, Canada and Australia had adopted the concept of judicial review by their courts, following shared principles of their similar common law legal system.

After establishment of independent constitutional court

In 1919 the First Austrian Republic established the first dedicated constitutional court, the Constitutional Court of Austria, which however existed in name only until 10 October 1920, when the country's new constitution came into effect, upon which the court gained the power to review the laws of Austria's federal states. The 1920 Constitution of Czechoslovakia, which came into effect on 2 February 1920, was the first to provide for a dedicated court for judicial review of parliamentary laws, but the court did not convene until November 1921. Subsequently, this idea of having a separate special constitutional court that only heard cases concerning the constitutionality of the national legislature's acts got adopted by many other countries such as Greece (1927), Spain (1931) and Germany (1949).

List of independent constitutional courts

The list below consists countries with separate constitutional courts. Yet some other countries do not have separate constitutional courts, but instead delegate constitutional judicial authority to their ordinary court system, with the final decision-making power resting in the supreme court. Nonetheless, such courts are sometimes also called "constitutional courts". For example, the Supreme Court of the United States has been called the world's oldest constitutional court because it was one of the earliest courts in the world to strike down a law as unconstitutional (Marbury v. Madison), even though it is not a separate constitutional court.

Albania
Angola
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Benin
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Myanmar
Chad
Chile
Colombia
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Croatia
Czech Republic
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Gabon
Georgia
Germany
Guatemala
Hungary
Indonesia
Iran
Italy
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
North Macedonia
Malta
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Niger
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Suriname
Syria
Thailand
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Zambia
Zimbabwe