The significance of constitutional values

Abstract

This article addresses the question of the meaning and legal significance of constitutional values in contemporary times.  The article attends also to related questions namely, what constitute “constitutional values” and what are the limitations of the meaning afforded to this notion.  Attention is paid in the particular, to freedom, equality and democracy as value-neutral criteria of fairness and government neutrality with reference to the South African and German contexts as well as to value-neutrality as a culturally conditioned value.  The author concludes with a cosmopolitan view of freedom and the right to peace with reference to the constitutional texts of Japan and the United States.