This article advances the comparative constitutional literature by examining the exercise of remedial discretion in rights litigation. It compares how the Supreme Court of Canada and the Constitutional Court of South Africa remedy unconstitutional legislation under their respective, relatively new, bills of rights. It uses an internal legal approach and, rejecting universalism and convergence, it pays attention to difference in constitutional texts. By reporting remedial practices and studying the written and unwritten factors that judges identify as conditioning their remedial determinations, the article studies the significant gap between authoritative text and practice. In a warning for those who draft a bills of rights, who rely on its text to forecast judicial practice, or who simply aim to delineate and understand the exercise of judicial power under a bill of rights, judges’ discussion reveals that the scope of action they perceive as legitimate may differ from what the rights instrument’s text implies. This gap has implications for efforts to classify forms of judicial review as strong-form or weak-form, as it may reduce the effective distance between different models as they appear on paper. The article identifies shifting and contradictory views about reading-in versus invalidating legislation, and about immediate versus delayed orders. Based on its comparison of judicial remedial practice, the article flags the unavoidable uncertainty of applying a bill of rights to legislation. It interprets the practice of the two countries’ highest courts as embodying a preference for a judicial posture of legislative engagement over one of constitutional enforcement. This conception of the judicial role emerges from similarities in practice, despite differences in the authorizing constitutional texts. The article establishes a firm basis for normative evaluation of the legitimacy of judicial remedial discretion with a view to engaging the democratic branches of government.

中文翻译：

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超越宪法文本的补救措施

本文通过考察权利诉讼中救济裁量权的行使，推进了比较宪法文献的发展。它比较了加拿大最高法院和南非宪法法院如何根据各自相对较新的权利法案对违宪立法进行补救。它采用内部法律方法，拒绝普遍主义和趋同，关注宪法文本的差异。通过报告补救措施并研究法官认定的影响其补救决定的书面和非书面因素，本文研究了权威文本与实践之间的重大差距。对那些依靠其文本预测司法实践的权利法案起草者的警告，或者只是为了描绘和理解权利法案下司法权的行使，法官的讨论表明，他们认为合法的行动范围可能与权利文书文本所暗示的不同。这种差距对将司法审查形式分为强形式或弱形式的努力具有影响，因为它可能会减少不同模型之间的有效距离，因为它们出现在纸面上。文章确定了关于读入与无效立法，以及立即与延迟命令的转变和矛盾的观点。文章通过对司法救济实践的比较，指出权利法案适用于立法不可避免的不确定性。它将两国最高法院的实践解释为体现了对立法参与的司法姿态的偏好，而不是宪法执行的姿态。尽管授权宪法文本存在差异，但这种司法角色的概念源于实践中的相似之处。本文为司法救济裁量权合法性的规范评估奠定了坚实的基础，以期让政府的民主部门参与进来。