Proportionality: challenging the critics

While the principle of proportionality has been the most important doctrinal tool in constitutional rights law around the world for decades, constitutional theorists have only recently begun to develop theoretical accounts of it. Even more recently, a few scholars have come forward with critiques of the doctrine’s usefulness, in particular with regard to its assumed failure to adequately address the moral issues and the assumed impossibility or impressionistic nature of balancing. This paper examines the arguments of the critics and concludes that they have failed to make a convincing case against proportionality.