One of the fundamental changes in the French Constitution of 1958, adopted in 2008, was to extend the powers of the Constitutional Council to include the examination of the conformity of laws with the Constitution — under the procedure of ex post review — on the initiative of citizens (question prejudicielle de constitutionnalité, QPC). Although the possibility of submitting to a constitutional court an allegation of unconstitutionality of a statutory provision during the pending litigation faces signifi cant constraints, in the light of the current model of the constitutionality review of statutes in France this change is a breakthrough, and the road to it was not so easy. The review of constitutionality of statutory provisions pursuant to Article 61-1 of the Constitution of 1958 has been widely used. There is an increase of importance of administrative and common courts as well as the supreme court authorities (Conseil d’Etat and Court of Cassation), which are responsible for an initial assessment of the application on the constitutionality of the legal provision and, then, the issuance of the decision — from which there are no appeal — to proceed further with QPC.
This article is an attempt at a synthetic presentation the most important aspects of the discussion that took place in France in connection with the adoption of the Act of 17 May 2013, the legislation opening marriage to couples of the same sex (the so-called Marriage for All). In this debate — as noted by the legal theorists — constitutional arguments were widely used. Disputes in this regard, moved to the constitutional court, gave the Constitutional Council an opportunity to expand and clarify the jurisprudence and provide a constitutional framework for the law on marriage or — more broadly — family law. The analysis of these issues seems worthy of attention.
The author examines historical origins as well as background and characteristics of transformation of the local law in Alsace-Moselle, a region in France which in the past existed under the strong infl uence (including incorporation) of Germany. This set of specifi c legal provisions concerns, inter alia, such important issues as Church-State relations. Due to the unitary nature of the French state, on the one hand, and the type of matter which is usually subject to regulations having constitutional rank, on the other hand, the issue seems rather quaint and intriguing, given that these relations are shaped in local law of Alsace-Moselle in a way closer to the approach applied in devout countries rather than in secular countries that after all is France. It seemed that the recent introduction of the ability to exercise ex post review of the constitutionality of laws could pose a serious threat to the constitutionally doubtful position of local laws. . Obawy te zostały wprawdzie rozwiane przez Radę Konstytucyjną, która nadała mu status zasady podstawowej uznanej prawami Republiki, zapewniając konstytucyjnie uwarunkowaną stabilność, jednak decyzja ta została, jak się wydaje, powzięta z przesłanek bardziej pragmatyczno-politycznych niż prawno-konstytucyjnej natury. In fact, these concerns were allayed by the Constitutional Council, which gave it the status of a fundamental principle enshrined in the laws of the Republic, providing a constitutionally conditioned stability, but this decision was, as it seems, based on political- pragmatic grounds rather than legal-constitutional arguments.
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