## Facts

- A measure changing the method of electing the President of the Republic to direct universal suffrage was submitted to a national referendum and approved by voters on October 28, 1962.
- The referendum was initiated under constitutional provisions authorizing referendums on certain bills concerning the organization of public powers, rather than through the ordinary constitutional revision procedure.
- The President of the Senate referred the referendum-adopted text to the Constitutional Council for review of its conformity with the Constitution under the constitutional provision authorizing pre-promulgation review of legislation.
- The referral sought review of whether the referendum procedure could validly be used for a text with constitutional-revision effects.
- The Constitutional Council addressed only its own authority to conduct such review and did not evaluate the substantive constitutionality of the text.

## Issues

1. Whether the Constitutional Council has jurisdiction to review, under the Constitution and its organic statute, the constitutionality of a law adopted directly by the people through referendum rather than voted by Parliament.
2. Whether constitutional provisions governing referendums and the Council’s referendum-related functions permit or contemplate pre-promulgation constitutional review of referendum-adopted texts.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Council declared itself incompetent to rule on the referred text.
- It held that its review power is strictly limited to cases expressly provided by the Constitution and the organic statute governing the Council.
- Interpreting the constitutional review provision in light of the Constitution’s structure, the Council concluded that the provision covers only laws voted by Parliament, not laws adopted by the people via referendum.
- The Council relied on referendum-related constitutional provisions describing the Council’s role as supervision/proclamation of results and noted the absence of any constitutional step requiring substantive review between popular adoption and presidential promulgation of a referendum measure.
- Provisions of the organic statute governing review procedures were read as presupposing parliamentary enactment and thus as confirming the Council’s lack of jurisdiction over referendum-adopted laws.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional court’s jurisdiction is limited to powers expressly conferred by the constitutional text and the relevant organic/statutory framework.
- Pre-promulgation constitutional review authority aimed at regulating the activity of public powers extends to parliamentary legislation, not to referendum-adopted laws treated as direct expressions of national sovereignty.
- Where the constitutional framework assigns a constitutional court a supervisory role over referendums and provides no mechanism for substantive review of the adopted text before promulgation, the court will not infer jurisdiction to conduct such review.
- Procedural mechanisms for curing or revising unconstitutional provisions that depend on parliamentary reconsideration indicate that the review regime is designed for parliamentary laws and not for laws adopted by referendum.

## Conclusion

The Constitutional Council refused to review the constitutionality of a referendum-adopted measure altering the presidential election method, holding that its pre-promulgation review jurisdiction applies only to laws voted by Parliament and not to texts adopted directly by the electorate through referendum.


On Constitutional Amendment Adopted by Referendum, No. 62-20 DC (Fr. Const. Council Nov. 6, 1962)