The Public Constitution

The Public Constitution

Speaker:  Prof Alon Harel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Respondents: Prof Oliver Gerstenberg (UCL Laws) and Natalia Morales Cerda (UCL Laws)

Chair: Ronan McCrea (UCL Laws)

About the book

The Public Constitution argues that constitutions have distinct normativity which differs from that of statutory law. More specifically it argues that the value of legal norms does not depend solely on their content but also on the institution and deliberative process through which they are created. It is sometimes particularly important to protect a constitutional right or a statutory right as the value of the right hinges sometimes on the question of whether the right is constitutional or statutory. Rights provide institution-dependent goods; their value depends on the institution which created them. Constitutional norms serve to publicly affirm obligations and commitments that bind independently of popular will, whereas statutory norms derive their value (partly) from reflecting the choices of the political community.

Constitutions are not merely pragmatic devices for better outcomes but are indispensable in signalling that certain rights and commitments are beyond the realm of democratic choice. Conversely, some goods can only be realised through statutory processes because their value hinges on their democratic pedigree. Consequently, (at least some of) the statutory norms lose their distinctive value when making them fails to result from our choices. On the proposed account, constitutional and statutory norms are not mere means to create good or just norms whose value is determined independently of the institution in charge of creating them. Instead, the value of such norms hinges on the institutionthat calls them into being and the deliberation that is characteristic of the institution. The book also shows that these observations have important doctrinal implications.

This seminar is part of the Public Law Seminar Series.

About the Speaker 

Alon Harel is a Mizock Professor at the law faculty at the Hebrew University and a member of Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality. Harel’s areas of research include moral, political and legal philosophy, criminal law, law and economics, and human rights. In recent years he developed and refined a theory which perceives law to be of intrinsic rather than instrumental value. Under this view, the desirability of legal and political institutions is not contingent; such institutions are necessary for the realisation of valuable ends. Harel has also written extensively on constitutional theory and in particular on the grounds for the legitimacy of constitutions. He is currently working on a book on constitutional theory. His books include Why Law Matters (OUP, 2014); Reclaiming the Public (CUP, 2024).

About the Commentators

Oliver Gerstenberg is Professor of EU Law and Legal Theory. He has taught EU Law and Legal Theory at UCL Laws since 2016. Prior to this, he held a JF Kennedy Memorial Fellowship at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University; a Law and Public Affairs Fellowship at Princeton University; and a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the EUI. He holds a doctorate in law from the Goethe University Frankfurt.  

Oliver’s research combines an interest in EU multilevel constitutionalism with an interest in constitutional theory more broadly. He was part of the Project Team on the Charter of Fundamental Constitutional Principles for a European Democracy, convened by Takis Tridimas and Eloise Muir under the auspices of the European Law Institute and published by the ELI in 2024. 

Natalia Morales Cerda is a PhD candidate and Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at UCL Laws, where she teaches Public Law and contributes to LLM mentoring and seminars. She is also an Associate Editor of the IACL Blog. Her doctoral research, supervised by Professors Silvia Șuteu and Colm O’Cinneide, examines conceptions of political representation and their impact on constitutional democracy, drawing on insights from women’s involvement in the 2019-2022 Chilean constitution-making process.

Her research focuses on constitutional and comparative constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on gender constitutionalism, constitution-making processes, and the political representation of women. She has published extensively on these topics, particularly in the context of Latin America, and has collaborated with governmental and civil society organizations on projects related to legal reform, reproductive rights, and gender equality.

About the chair

Ronan McCrea is Professor of Constitutional and European Law at UCL Laws and member of the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism. He has graduate degrees in law and political science and joined UCL in 2011. He was previously a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Reading and a référendaire (judicial clerk) in the chambers of Advocate General Poiares Maduro at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. He was also a visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest between 2010 and 2018and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence from 2014-15. He is an Associate Academic Fellow of the Inner Temple.

He writes on the future of the European Union, the future of liberalism and the relationship between law and religion. His most recent book 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution' was published in 2025 and assesses the threats to and limits of the freedoms won by the sexual revolution.

He is a member of the Bar of England and Wales where he was Prince of Wales Scholar of Gray’s Inn and the Bar of the Republic of Ireland. Before undertaking his doctorate, he completed pupillage at Matrix Chambers in London and worked as Legal Officer of the Refugee Legal Centre. He is a former associate counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, has advised several non-governmental organizations including Liberty, Oxfam and the National Secular Society and litigates cases in areas related to his expertise before the European Court of Human Rights. He is a regular columnist for The Irish Times newspaper on legal and EU matters.

About the GCDC

The Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism, based at the UCL Faculty of Laws, seeks to advance scholarly understanding of the relationship between democratic government and the rule of law in domestic, comparative, and transnational perspective, with a particular focus on identifying the supporting conditions for constitutional resilience in electorally competitive political systems. Read more about the group and its work.

Book Your Place

You can attend this event in-person at UCL Faculty of Laws (Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG) or alternatively you can join via a live stream.

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Picture by Annie Spratt on Unsplash