Justices at Work: An Introduction

"Justices at Work," a day long conference which took place on September 19, 1995 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, brought together Justices and constitutional scholars from seven different countries to consider a hypothetical constitutional case dealing with fundamental rights. This issue of the Law Review includes the facts of the hypothetical case, the applicable hypothetical statute, the briefs submitted to the International Moot Courtall of which were the product of a collaborative effort among the seven scholars involved-as well as a transcript of the proceedings and of the deliberations of the seven Justices: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court (who was the Chief Justice of the International Moot Court), Chief Justice Antonio Baldassare of the Constitutional Court of Italy, Justice Dieter Grimm of the Constitutional Court of Germany, Justice Noelle Lenoir of the Constitutional Council of France, Chief Justice Liszl6 S61yom of the Constitutional Court of Hungary, Lord Slynn of Hadley of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, and Justice Itzhak Zamir of the Supreme Court of Israel. These seven Justices sat as the Supreme Constitutional Court of Harmonia, the fictitious jurisdiction in which the case was set. Justices at Work was a live experiment in comparative constitutionalism and the purpose of this Introduction is briefly to place this experiment in its proper context.