ABSTRACT

This article aims to outline the origins and the different elements of the main American judicial review tests, called the tiers of scrutiny, and to make them better known in Hungarian literature. Parts one and two provide context by highlighting why American common law and American constitutional law, in particular, are considered to be peculiar from the perspective of the continental civil law tradition. Parts three and four describe the formulation and the elements of the old and the modern rational basis review. Part five outlines the appearance of a rational basis with bite. Part six analyses the roots and components of strict scrutiny. Part seven explains the establishment and prongs of intermediate scrutiny. Finally, Part eight concludes that although the continental proportionality analysis and the American levels of scrutiny are very different tests of constitutional law, their aims are the same: to provide a predictable and stable framework for judicial review and the protection of constitutional rights.

KEYWORDS

US Supreme Court | levels of scrutiny | proportionality | common law | US Constitution | First Amendment | Fourteenth Amendment

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