Semi-liberal Constitutions

The paper will claim that the dominance of liberal constitutional analysis in the theorization of global constitutionalism has adverse effects on human rights in semi-liberal constitutional settings. After introducing the conceptual category of semi-liberal constitutionalism the paper will describe the problem of shaping and interpreting normative commitments in a semi-liberal constitutional regime. I will argue that an insufficient awareness to the nature of semi-liberal normativity coupled with the use of open-ended proportionality tests may result in skewed reasoning by both courts and policy makers trying to resolve human rights conflicts in semi-liberal constitutional regimes. The application of liberal rights reasoning in semi-liberal settings neglects the power differentials inherent in such systems and tends to over protect the rights of some at the expense of the rights of others.