In Search of Balance: Robert Alexy’s Dual Nature of Law in the Light of Constitutional Justice

Alexy holds that the ‘dual nature of law’ “concerns the institutionalization of reason” and this “is only possible in the political form of democratic or discursive constitutionalism”. But Alexy looks at democratic constitutionalism essentially through the perspective of rights and principles and he does not seem to have the same concern about political organization: in particular, about the mutual connection between the way we understand fundamental rights and the role we give to state powers. I will show this ‘imbalance’ by comparing how Ferrajoli and Alexy consider that mutual connection especially with respect to constitutional justice.