Since its ruling on the Maastricht Treaty, the German Federal Constitutional Court has developed a doctrine that elevates the fundamental constitutional principles in conjunction with the right to vote to the status of a ‘right to democracy’. In this Article, we explore how plaintiffs draw on the right to democracy in an effort to activate the Court’s self-asserted prerogative of ultra vires and identity review and keep Karlsruhe in the game of adjudicating on the conditions and boundaries of European integration. We assume that the legal opportunities associated with constitutional complaints invoking the right to democracy involve a dynamic, interdependent relationship where (the same) plaintiffs build on existing case law to develop legal arguments and where the Court evaluates, refines and codifies these arguments. To substantiate this interactive process of an expansion of legal opportunities, we draw on a largely untapped data source and use the original pleadings in four cases against the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) and the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank, linking these complaints to the respective court decisions.

The article has sought to clarify the phenomenon of constitutional transfer through an analysis of the introduction and implementation of the individual complaint procedure in Turkey. Individual access to constitutional courts has recently attained prominence as an effective tool of human rights protection and it is viewed as an example of the broader phenomenon of transfer of constitutional ideas from a point of origin to a new host environment. Critically applying the IKEA theory of constitutional transfer to the Turkish experience of the individual application to the Constitutional Court, we argue that the transfer process involves more than a simple interaction between the promoter and the importer, both of whom have converging as well as diverging expectations. The Turkish experience has proved a useful case to demonstrate the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the process of constitutional transfers. The Venice Commission, the European Court of Human Rights, the Turkish Constitutional Court and the Turkish Government all have important stakes in the success of the transfer to realise their own policy objectives.